Travelling to Paris?

Book into a Photographer’s Delight 

the Photography Themed Hôtel Déclic

By Steve Meltzer © 2017

I was planning a trip to Paris this spring for the publication of a book of my photographs and I was surfing the web looking accommodations when I came upon the Hôtel Déclic; a hotel that turns out to be a photographer’s wonderland dream wrapped up in elegant 4 star luxury. Crammed full of cameras and imagery Déclic was almost too good to be true. Even its name echoed its photographic ambiance; “déclic” is slang for a camera shutter release which is French « le déclencheur».

The Contact Sheet Suite

Checking it out, I discovered that the Hôtel Déclic was the creation of designer Sandrine Alouf of the company “Groupe Maranatha.” Alouf's vision was to create a unique hotel that surrounds its guests in a sumptuous photographic environment of images, nostalgia and deluxe furnishings. The hotel is located in Montmartre one of the city’s most romantic “quartiers.” Since the late 19^th century it has been known for its art and the artists who resided there; which includes everyone from Matisse to Picasso. As well as art this charming 18th arrondisement neighborhood exudes romance. Sensuality is in the air and Montmartre has been the setting for films like “Can-Can”, “Moulin Rouge” and “Amélie." The hotel itself is not too far from the famous “Folies Bergère.” 

The Photo Booth Room

From the street the hotel’s rather plain exterior belies the nearly hallucinogenic universe within. Entering the hotel you walk down corridors lined with cameras and hundreds of images. Checking in you discover rooms with names like the Reflex, the Contact Sheet and the Selfie. In fact all 18 rooms and 9 suites at Déclic are named for different photographic themes and decorated accordingly; often with tongue deeply in cheek. For a photographer it’s the perfect place to end a day after metro-schlepping across Paris taking photos.

The Reflex Room

In the Reflex Room for example you can stretch out on a bed shaped like a vintage interchangeable lens camera while in the Black & White room your bed’s headboard is a giant screen that projects a show of “retro” B/W images taken by anonymous photographers. As Sandrine Alouf charmingly puts it, “it captures the beauty of the art of photography, the taste of the image, and the joy of snapping”. It’s a room ready made for dreaming in black and white.

The Darkroom Suite 

Hotel Déclic blends sensuality and romance and it is nowhere more evident than in the “Darkroom Suite” (which is also known as the “Sexy Noire Suite.”) This room’s darkroom theme includes overhead ‘safelight’ illumination which will bring back fond memories to any analog era photographers. Having worked in a photo lab for 30 years myself I must say that this is the most deluxe darkroom I’ve ever been in. However the hotel frowns on actual darkroom work in suite as yellow fixer stains are impossible to get out of bed sheets and towels.

The Paparazzi Suite

Red is the color of passion and it dominates several rooms like the lusciously intense red décor of the “Paparazzi” suite. Fit for a visiting celebrity-- trying to avoid paparazzi-- it features a red carpet with a Hollywood gold star that leads to a sleek four poster bed. Looking up while in bed guests come face to face with a satiric pack of paparazzi armed with cameras staring down at them.

There’s also a "photo shoot" room for guests who want to sharpen their studio skills and the photographer Thierry Hugo is available through the hotel for classes and for private photo tours around the city.

The  Photo Studio Suite

Hôtel Déclic is an amazing place to stay. Comfort and luxury with prices that are quite in line with most 4 star Paris hotels (129-499€). You can find out more about Hôtel Déclic in my expanded article at

http://www.shutterbug.com/content/book-your-next-vacation-hotel-declic-fantastic-photography-themed-hotel-paris#adRmL3WECo84mDZb.97

For reservations or more information contact the hotel directly at  

http://declichotel.com/en/contact.html

(All photos abaca press courtesy Hôtel Déclic)   

Sud de France 1.1: My Life in a Flash

The new digital universe is one of the main the reasons that I can move to the South of France in the first place. Eight years ago when we had thought of moving but it seemed then very, very far away. 

My stock photo agencies, for instance, were all in the U.S. and still asking for color slides and transparencies. Whenever I visited France I had had trouble getting film processed and I was also worried about the expense of shipping large packages of slides halfway across the planet. It would put a crimp in my stock shooting to say the least. 

Back then the magazines I worked with were still asking for film. A few were getting comfortable with digital images only IF I shot them with my 2MP Nikon. Today, of course, magazines only want stuff uploaded to their websites making it very easy. Now I can write and shoot and upload stories at the click of a mouse.

Another factor working against moving to France back at the turn of the 21^st century was gear. I do a lot of studio photography and that means big electronic studio flashes that all use 110-125 VAC 60 Hz power. Europe is all 220 VAC at 50Hz making my lights incompatible. You needed studio flashes because film was very color sensitive and needed precise, color accurate strobes to get true color. Remember kids this was the time long ago, before Photoshop color adjustment. Film was relatively slow with speeds of ISO 400 or slower. That called for a lot of light. 

Well between Photoshop and high ISO capable camera you can do a lot more with a lot less light. So I took my big old strobes to a local photo shop and sold them. When I get to Europe I’ll invest in some of the new generation of cool fluorescent and LED lights for studio setting.

Once we decided to move I spent weeks going through thousands of 35mm slides and medium format transparencies. It is both exhilarating and heart breaking. The images stirred up memories of the kings and queens, presidents and artists, the rich people and the poor I have photographed over the years. People like Ronald Reagen, Jimmy Carter, Queen Elizabeth II, The King of Sweden, Chuck Berry, Ray Charles, Spinal Tap, Annie Lennox, Deng Xio-Ping, Clint Eastwood, Luiciano Pavoratti and others. 

But I have had to edit my pictures ruthlessly because they are physically too much to ship. So I sat in the middle of a dozen plastic file boxes editing my pictures and my past.When I found something I really wanted to hold on to, I scanned it and saved it as a digital file. In the end I loaded all my digital images into three 16 GB flash drives along with my favorite CDs and copies of articles and books I’ve written. 

Nearly five thousand images and whole copies of two books are stored in devices the size of a cigarette lighter.

Holding those three tiny flash drives in my hand I realized the truth of what Arthur C. Clarke, author of “2001”, had written,

“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. “

Being able to hold one's life’s work in a couple of tiny flash drives is truly magic.

Actually scary magic.... 

Photos and text © 2010 Steve Meltzer

Sud de France 1.0

Introduction:

In June of 2010 my wife Diane and I decided to pack up our lives and our cat and move to the South of France. I'm a writer and photographer and so I can do my work from anywhere. Then soon after we decided to move, in the middle of our packing, up an exciting new website started www.PIXIQ.com and I was asked become one of their contributors.

Although I've been a writer for over thirty years I've been reluctant to blog but when friends suggested I write about moving to France I realized that actually what we are doing is perhaps as the expression goes “ahead of the curve. Many of the issues we're dealing with will soon be the very ones that my younger boomer compatriots will be facing.

So sharing about our move and our new life made sense. These blogs will be a diary of our changes seen through a photographer's. And I’ll be posting lots of images so you'll be able to see the world we are going to. 

“Sud de France” is the new name the French tourism agency has given the Languedoc-Roussillon region of France because they think it is easier for English speakers, i.e. Americans, to remember. The region sits on the Mediterranean coast and has a warm climate with they say, about 300 days of sunshine a year. Although not as well known as Bordeaux and Burgundy it is one of the world’s largest wine producing regions. That’s our destination. 

1.0 --The beginning:  Paper, paper, and well, more paper.


Bureaucracy is a French word and going to France you need to understand it and learn to overwhelm it. To stay in France for any length of time you need a Long Stay Visa which gives one permission to remain in the country. To get one you need to provide the nearest French consulate with lots of paper. Proof of birth, marriage, citizenship and so on and on. Most importantly you need proof that you have enough money to help France overcome its economic woes.
Besides the Long Stay Visa I also wanted a Talent et Competences card which would let me legal sort of work in France. Note however that if you moved to someplace like Paris where you didn't have a car and you rented an apartment you might never ever have to show anyone a document much less a Long Stay Visa--no matter how long you lived there. 

But heading for the lovely small towns of the South we decided that 'rules is rules' and we would do our best to follow them, just to be on the safe side.
So we went down to San Francisco carrying five thick stacks of papers. Each was in a color coded folder and had a large ribbon holding it together. Diane put the ribbons on as a little French flourish.

We had rehearsed our presentation to the officials. I had a huge portfolio of photos and copies of books to amaze them with. We were ready for our close-ups!

But when we arrived at the Consulate we entered a small room with a dozen chairs and a long glass window behind which two guys were sitting. A TV in the room was set to TV5Monde and a show about Finnish deer roundups. The place felt like a dentist's waiting room more than the setting for an interrogation.
We sat down and waited nervously, keyed up after weeks of organizing and copying papers. Finally we were called we handed the guy behind the glass our papers. He looked them over and without saying much told us to put our fingers on the digital fingerprint device. Next to us a college age young woman was going through the same procedure and when asked to put her fingers on the device winced and said, "Ohhhh, eeecckkk, can I get a tissue to clean this?"
The room filled with gentle laughter. She cleaned the screen and then after getting her fingerprints taken we did ours. 


Then the guy behind the glass asked us the most important question of the day, "Visa or Mastercard?"


We flew back home later that day (the photo above is of Puget Sound where we live). A week later Fedex brought our Visas and a letter saying that I would be granted my Talent card and be an official "artist."

Of course there was one hitch to the card and that was that when we arrive I have to go to the Police for the card. I have to have a blood test to prove that I am not one of those disease ridden "La Boheme/Rent" artists.

And after the blood test I am sure that they will ask me that most important question for any visiting artist.

"Visa or Mastercard to pay the 275 Euros for the card?"

Photos and text © 2010 Steve Meltzer