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Cleary Fine Art Photography

Walking The Boulevard des Pyrénées – Wright Brothers Then and Now series

Walking The Boulevard des Pyrenees, Pau, France Wright Brothers Then and Now series by Dan Cleary in Dayton OHio

Walking The Boulevard des Pyrénées: In Pau, France there is a mile-long walkway called The Boulevard des Pyrénées which faces the Pyrénées mountains in the distance. Wright State University research library has a historic photograph Katharine Wright, Countess Cordelia de Lambert, Orville Wright, and Wilbur Wright walking the boulevard in Pau in their collection. This was a photograph that I wanted to create an image around. We stayed in the historic part of downtown Pau and the boulevard was about 8 blocks from our hotel. I walked up and down the boulevard multiple times at different times of the day to capture photographs I could use with the historic photograph. I took about 400+ photographs of the boulevard knowing that it would be hard to match my image with the historic photograph. I realized as I was there the boulevard hadn’t changed in 110 years since the original historic photograph was taken. Looking through all the photographs I captured I did find one that was a good match for the composition, but it was boring. It had no other people in it. I thought the overall finished image needed more tension in it. I looked through the other 400+ photographs and found images that included people and even one image where a bird flew into the frame. My finished image is a combination of four of my images from the boulevard with the historic photograph. The quote I used meant my photograph needed more space around it, as if the photographer was hiding further away from the subjects in the historic photograph. “Every time we make a move, the people on the street stop and stare at us. We have our pictures taken every two minutes.” Katharine Wright

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