Crosswalk, 2.4:1 street photography in Paris

Passers-by with umbrellas outside a shop window, a Paris street in the rain
Crosswalk (Paris)
Passers-by with umbrellas outside a shop window, a Paris street in the rain
Crowd on a pedestrian crossing, a man in a grey hoodie going against the flow
Pedestrians lined up at a red light outside a shop, a Paris street corner
Group of tourists crossing a Paris bridge in full summer sun
Busy pedestrian crossing, a family under a parasol, summer in Paris
Pedestrians waiting in front of Notre-Dame de Paris under a winter sky
Row of pedestrians at the kerb, one of them checking her phone
Passers-by outside a shop window strung with golden lights at Christmas
Pedestrians lined up in low winter light, long shadows on the pavement
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Freezing a moment in the street to reveal what people compose without knowing it: natural poses, unintended tableaux caught in the flow. The 2.4:1 frame imposes its horizon, the scene stretches, breathes, and reads from left to right like a film still.

It is not the street that is photographed. It is what settles there.

What the street composes without knowing

Crosswalk is a street series made in Paris, around pedestrian crossings. It starts from a simple observation: at a red light, a group of strangers takes position, waits, spreads out, and forms for a few seconds a composition nobody intended. Then the light turns green and it all comes apart.

Each image looks for that second. Nobody poses, nobody looks at the camera, and yet the bodies organise themselves: an even gap between two figures, a colour answering another at the far end of the frame, someone crossing against the flow and breaking the line.

The 2.4:1 frame

The frame is that of widescreen cinema. It is not a decorative crop, it changes how the image is read. A square frame concentrates attention at the centre; a very wide frame forces the eye to travel across the scene from left to right, like a tracking shot. Figures become points along a line, and the space between them becomes a subject in itself.

The images are made at eye level, from a distance, without flash. The series runs across all four seasons: rain on December asphalt, the low January light that stretches shadows along the pavement, full August sun on a bridge.

Prints and acquisition

Single unique prints on Jean-Pierre Gouy's handmade hemp paper and high-resolution digital files, available from the shop with worldwide shipping.

Max Barrett© 2026