The Love Merchant // La marchande d'amour {Paris Street Photography}
La marchande d'amour // The Love Merchant © CHANT WAGNER 2017
The presence of this belle-de-jour in broad daylight in the middle of a normal street - save for its history and half-open activities - made me think of the same quality of incongruity that a perfume trail can reveal in the middle of ordinary life. If you smell Bal à Versailles in the midst of practical activities, it is like smelling a compendium on courtesan wiles and a history of seduction condensed for you. It comes out of nowhere...
The felt presence of this marchande d'amour was like, I realized, the brusque irruption of intense perfume in the middle of everyday life. The street veers from simply Parisian and charming to illicit.
The fact that the professional chose to stand by a grocery store stating "cours des Halles" or "Halles Prices" added a sense of ironic truth to the scene.
