From The Travel Photo Archive

In scoping out potential cover photos for the 3rd book, I paused yesterday to have a dig through old 35mm prints. Remember those (if you’re old enough)? It was called F-I-L-M.

I’d almost forgotten about this one. I can’t believe this is now approaching nineteen years ago. Almost TWO decades!

The Eiffel Tower (of course). [Photo by me, 1996.]

The group in front of the two tourists in the center-left includes a woman singer. She’s in the white top, nearly mid-photo, standing on a small platform “next” to the base of the tower. (The “platform” may have been informal, like a piece of kit that was chosen on the spot to give her some more “elevation.”) I didn’t get her nationality, but based on what I had heard it didn’t sound like she was “singing” in French or another language I might have recognized – such as Italian, Spanish, or German.

I place “singing” in quotes there because moments before I snapped that she had just finished lip-synching to loudly canned music. There’s a camera tripod partly visible next to her, and various other “equipment” on the wheeled cart in front of her. Apparently, she was shooting a video.

I’d always wished I’d gotten her face; but I was simply not quick enough to get out my camera, aim and click. She stepped to the ground a second after I’d taken it (she’s looking down about to do so in the photo), and was promptly surrounded by her “entourage.” This is the only photo of her I managed to grab. (In those days, you didn’t know how photos had come out until after you had had the F-I-L-M roll developed days, or even weeks, later. Yes, really!)

Anyway, I throw this out to the great, wide internet of 2015 in case any of you dropping by might know. Does she ring any bells? Woman singer, probably in her 20s to early 30s (in 1996), Mediterranean (Greek? maybe even Turkish?), North African, or Middle Eastern …. in a music video singing passionately and dramatically in front of the Eiffel Tower?

If memory serves correctly also, she was, uh, reasonably attractive too. 😉

Off you go. I expect an answer from you global music aficionados. Don’t let me down!

Have a good Thursday, wherever you are in the world. 🙂

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UPDATE: February 13: “More Late 20th Century Paris Photos” here. Enjoy.