A Weekend In Paris Revealed at Monmouth County Library

Paris — the city of lights, the city of romance. The name alone evokes wishful sighs and moments of daydreams. If you’ve been there, you long to return; if you haven’t, you long for the journey. 

If, however, you can't drop everything and hop on a plane tomorrow, fear not- Camille Rankin’s book "To Love Paris- A Book of French Verbs" can whisk you away into the arms of Paris at a moment’s notice.

Camille Rankin is a Jersey girl with a love of Paris. Born in South Orange, she spent her summers at the Jersey shore and fell in love with Paris as a young high school student on a senior class trip. Since then, she has returned countless times to fall in love over and over again.

Rankin, a writer and editor of Outdoor Life magazine, presented her photo book, "To Love Paris—A Book of French Verbs", on Saturday at the Monmouth County Library - Eastern Branch in Shrewsbury.

Rankin is not a professional photographer, but a glance through her book would have you believe she was. 

The photos in the book were gathered from a March 2009 trip to Paris when Rankin had approximately 36 hours to wander the city alone before meeting up with her husband. After the trip, Rankin contemplated different ways of putting the photos together in some sort of book.

“At first, the only intention I had was to make a book for myself,” Rankin said. “But none of the traditional photo books available online seemed to fit.”

Thankfully, she stumbled upon Blurb.com, a website that allows you to create books without sticking to a conventional template. It provided just the freedom Rankin needed, and her self-published book of photos was born.

Rankin felt that the book needed a little something extra besides the photos, and after racking her brain for ideas, she came up with the idea of adding a French verb to each photo. On each picture, there is a French verb and the English translation. Each verb describes the essence of the photo and complements the simple elegance of the book.

Rankin describes her photos as “casual Paris”, stating that sometimes travel photos can seem “too perfect” and intimidating, which stops people from trying it. “It’s all about developing your eye,” Rankin says.

Rankin also offered some simple tips for taking good travel photos. She showed examples of each tip to demonstrate what she meant. Two of the most important tips, according to Rankin, are to “put something in the foreground,” and “take close ups.” 

“Putting something in the foreground adds layers to your photo and brings depth that you might not otherwise have captured,” she says. “It also adds something different to what would be a traditional photo.”

For close ups, Rankin loves taking pictures of things such as street signs, food, and menus. “It creates an instant memory of the moment,” she says.

Another good tip that Rankin offered was to take photos of things that were “typical to the place”, beside the obvious things, such as the Eiffel Tower. She suggested taking photos of local handicrafts or shop windows, two things that she feels really give off a local vibe.

“When you look at a photo of a shop window, or something local to the place, it takes you back to that exact moment,” Rankin said, “And that’s the best thing about travel photography.”

Copies of Rankin’s book "To Love Paris-A Book of French Verbs" are available at amazon.com or http://www.photo-accents.com/.