The first arcade I went to was an unknown one, and actually across the street from the Passage des Panoramas, the arcade we first meant to go to. It was lucky however that we found this smaller one because it wasn't as busy as the following two we would go to.
I found myself immediately struck with the awe of a historical architecture. The base of the walls and their details fascinated me. They showed aging of the stones and wood. Something had happened here. What was so intriguing to me is that I could make up my own history of the place I was in based on the small details of the floor and architecture. This feeling would accompany me throughout my picture taking process in the arcades. As Benjamin says, "Performed in the figure of the flâneur is that of the detective" (The Arcades Project 442). Looks like I am guilty of flânerie once again.
It was because of this nostalgia that I was also drawn to shoot my photographs in sepia and black and white tone along with color. I was very interested in how much the story of the arcades changed when the colors were transformed. Looking at the sepia toned photos, time is misplaced much more than with the color. It also shows my nostalgia for the past. Yet I still have a longing for the technology of color readily available to me. Shooting in both reminded me not to get caught up in just the nostalgia. And I was hardly able to completely forget about the present when I began to notice that this arcade, like the next two to come, was filled with modern objects (like this plastic chair to the right) that made my mind sway back and forth between the past and the present.
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