Cordonnier

It's time for a Paris fix.I recently found this gem taken back in 2006.Pity that I did not frame it better and include all the scooter.
A cordonnier is a cobbler( a shoemaker).Most have disappeared like this one.But what an interesting scene.The two women examining some papers in the daylight outside the dressmaker who also sells "mode recup"-recycled fashion.And what is the pink duster doing in the bucket in the road? I'm assuming that it is a duster.And the solitary pot plant on the ledge above the door.Pure Paris.Sadly it is disappearing Paris.By now the dressmaker may well have gone,like the cobbler the victim of cheap Asian manufacturing and the throwaway society.I do hope not.These little speciality shops are part of the appeal of Paris for me.I wish that I had photographed more of them when I had the opportunity.

The photo was taken on a Leica Digilux 1.A very clunky and weird digital camera even when it was launched in 2001.If you read photography gear sites on the internet you could be forgiven for thinking that unless you have the latest 24mp or more all singing and all dancing digital camera there is no way that you could take a half decent photo.Indeed most of the photographic gearheads would not even think of using a Digilux 1 as a paperweight.And yet it turned out very nice files.And thanks to Lightroom 5 you can now find detail in even the jpeg files which was not accessible previously like the interior of the shop.