BOOK | Paris Views | Gail Albert Halaban

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One of my guilty pleasures in my travels around the world is peering into the windows of homes.  Not in a creepy way, mind you.  I’m just fascinated to see the way that people live. (Think Hitchcock’s film, “Rear Window.”)

New York photographer, Gail Albert Hallaban, has used this theme as inspiration for two fascinating books.  Her first book, Out My Window”, is a collection of photographs focused into the apartments of New Yorkers.

Out My Window, Gal Albert Halaban

“Paris Views” is Halaban’s visually narrative view over the legendary rooftops, across cobblestoned courtyards and wide boulevards, and into the windows of elegant Haussmannian buildings, quaint garrets, and concrete contemporaries, revealing intimate moments in the lives of Parisians.

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In her foreword to the book, Cathy Rémy, of Le Monde writes, “Halaban suspends movement, creating a visual silence in a world of noise to better rescue everyday gestures from the oblivion that swallows them without respite.”

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Rémy worked with Halaban to find subjects, via Facebook, friends of friends, and word of mouth. 

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Through her eye, Halaban’s subjects become like characters in a painting, framed by the architecture of the homes in which they live. 

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Paging through Paris Views transports me back to Paris, where I would, most likely, be gazing out of my hotel into the windows of my Parisian neighbors. 

C’est magnifique!

PARIS VIEWS
Gail Albert Halaban
Available through artbook.com and Amazon

All participants gave their permission to be photographed for the book.

[Published in the USA by Aperture, and in Europe by Éditions de la Martinière.]