Flâneur

The term flâneur comes from the French verb flâner, which means "to stroll". A flâneur is thus a person who walks the city, looking at buildings and places -- watching the passersby, thinking and being inspired. I particularly love when this way of seeing the world is translated through photography. The photos of Willy Ronis (above) for example. His rather well known photos of Paris give me such inspiration in my own attempts at photography. Most of us simply don't feel we should spend our time as flanuers. It just isn't productive or something. What a shame. I think when the moment comes, and we face our last day on this planet -- that we will have wished for more time to work, but more to play. Time to be "in the moment" -- to savor life, and it's beauty.