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The ten best photo spots in Paris

Look up any list of the most photographed cities in the world, and Paris is in the top 3, usually along with New York and London. And for good reason: every street is a work of art.

Even if the Eiffel Tower has been photographed millions of times, we all bring something new to it. And besides, how can you tell the story of visiting Paris without seeing the Tower? It is the symbol of the city, even more than Big Ben of London or the Chrysler building of New York.

The Tower looms over the entire city, but where to go to get the best shot?

We just spent two weeks in Paris, producing the latest episode of PhotowalksTV, and we have a few ideas about photographing the Tower and other Paris icons.

Let’s break it down, with ten tips for Paris’s best.

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Paris Musées makes over 62,000 of historic photos copyright free and available online

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If you enjoy historic photos and need them for any purpose, here’s a real gem. Paris Musées has just launched an online collection with more than 100,000 digital reproductions of classic artwork. Among them, there are 62,500 photos, all of them scanned in high-resolution and publicly accessible under a CC0 license.

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Instagram star bashed for photoshopping herself to different locations in Paris

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Swedish-born Instagram star Johanna Emma Olsson recently posted photos from her glamorous trip to Paris, posing in front of some iconic locations. But it didn’t take long for her followers to figure out that something is fishy. At a closer look, it’s easy to see that the photos are fake. So, the Instagrammer got bashed by her fans and of course, the whole case got viral.

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Billboard shoots photos of terrified jaywalkers after scaring them with tire screeching sounds

Billboards are often ignored. You can walk past a hundred of them in a day and not remember what a single one of them was promoting. We just kind of tune them out. This one in France, however, is a little difficult to ignore. Especially if you’re crossing the street when you’re not paying attention.

The billboard has sensors which monitor for people crossing the road when they’re not supposed to. It plays a loud tire screeching sound making the hapless wanderer believe their life is in danger. It then snaps a photo of the terrified pedestrian and puts it on the billboard. The goal is to raise awareness for the dangers of being a careless pedestrian.

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Dramatic photos reveal what Paris looks like submerged in flood

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A few days ago, we had a crazy flood in Paris. The Seine rose by a whopping 6.10m (20 feet for you, imperial friends), overflowing the banks, depriving people of electricity, and flooding buildings, public transports, and businesses.

It was a rather destructive flood, especially for cities outside of Paris where entire towns, as I am writing this, are still chest-deep underwater.

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Photoshopped Photo Of An Innocent Canadian Sikh Portrayed As A Paris Terrorist Goes Viral

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The internet and Photoshop are both amazing tools that have facilitated endless amounts of good deeds.

But as a Canadian Sikh by the name of Veerender Jubbal recently found out, they aren’t always used with the best intentions in mind.

A selfie Jubal posted online several months ago was photoshopped to make him look like a terrorist and was spread online presenting him as one of the terrorists responsible for the murderous Paris attacks.

Clearly a fake, the photo still went viral and was printed and shared by European news outlets.

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Photojournalist Steve McCurry Recalls ‘Chaos’ at the Stade de France During Paris Attacks

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Famed photojournalist Steve McCurry was one of 80,000 people inside the Stade de France watching a France-Germany friendly on Friday, November 13th, 2015. Twenty minutes into the match, three suicide bombers detonated explosive vests just outside of the national stadium as one part of a string of ‘highly coordinated’ terrorist attacks across Paris, France.

McCurry, most known for his 1984 National Geographic portrait ‘Afghan Girl,’ spoke to CBS News on Saturday, recounting the ‘mayhem and chaos’ that unfolded.[Read More…]

These Sucked Faces Demonstrate How Smartphones Alienate Us From Ourselves And Our Surroundings

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In this rather unusual photo set, French photographer Antoine Geiger criticizes our obsession and addiction to modern technology and smartphones by creating faces being sucked into screens.

Using candid photos captured in the Louvre and elsewhere in Paris, Antoine says this project places the screen “as an object of “mass subculture”, alienating the relation to our own body, and more generally to the physical world”.

Love ‘em or hate ‘em, these photos make an interesting point.

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First New York, Now Paris? Selfie Sticks Are Under Attack

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Following in the footsteps of US museums such as the Museum of Modern Art, The Guggenheim, Hirshhorn Museum, and the Getty Center, Museums in Paris are considering the ban of selfie sticks.

The Palace of Versailles seems to be spearheading the ban with its guards already ordering visitors to keep their selfie sticks packed away, and the ban is expected to become formal “within weeks”.

The Pompidou Centre which houses the Musée National d’Art Moderne, Europe’s largest modern art museum, is “heading towards a ban” as well.

The Louvre is said to be concerned, while the Musee d’Orsay has nothing to worry about.

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Photographing Photos of Paris

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I recently had a short stay in Paris.  I knew that there would not be much time for photography, but I was determined to make the most out of the opportunity (I think I slept for about 8 hours over 3 days).

I photograph people, so I had planned to recruit other tourists to fill in as models – but with the volume of relentless touts swarming all of the famous landmarks, convincing a stranger to sign a model release was a bit of a challenge.

I was also trying to think of ways to photograph the famous landmarks of Paris in a way that was at least a little different from the millions of times they had all been photographed before.

The idea I came up with was to use my Rolleiflex vintage film medium format camera’s projection viewfinder to photograph photos of Paris.

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