1863 1867: Street Views of Paris ( Enhanced photo gallery)

Rare views of Paris during the Second Empire. By this third decade of photography exposure time of cameras had greatly improved, resulting in street scenes that don t look as much like ghost towns. It s interesting to see all this time later because the people in the street are going about their day and are unaware of the photographer. Just a couple years after this the city would get quite chaotic with the Paris Commune of 1871. I have compiled, worked on the images sharpening, fixing rotation errors, increasing brightness, contrast and finally zooming, enhancing so we can see in greater detail what is happening. The background music is selections from La belle Hélène by Offenbach, one of the biggest operas of the era which premiered in Paris on December 17, 1864.