Paris. City of Reality?

Today is Valentine’s Day, and I am freshly back from Paris, the city of lovers. I am certainly in love with it. Pont des Arts provided endless entertainment and dreaming as I imagine couples high on Love immortalising their feelings as they close their engraved padlock.

Paris is a city of so many old clichés; berets and baguettes, Art and Artisans, the Tour Eiffel and Tart Tatin. But here they’re real. Paris is a living, breathing cliché, where dreams can become reality.

In the beauty of the city it would be easy to forget the grief of the world, but the exhibition at the Maison Européene de la Photographie, nestled just on the right bank, refuses to let the casual dreamer delude themselves about the beauty of society.

The Henri Huet exhibition, currently resident in the basement, is harrowing to see. Portraits of war-ravaged Vietnam and the desperation of the military have staggering powers.

Against the backdrop of fantasy, harsh reality is all the harder to bear. Painfully beautiful, as we celebrate pink, frothy love we must remember the raw, painful love of soldiers and of sacrifice.