My family recently participated in an atelier at the Louvre.  An atelier is a workshop and almost every museum in Paris offers them.  This one was about photography. When we arrived we waited with some other families until the photographer got there. She told us what was going to happen in French, of which I understood a bit, and then led us to a room of paintings. There we learned to look for little details we could zoom in on and centre our pictures around, by making a little window with our hands, just as kids do when they pretend to take pictures. Then she handed out cameras and tripods, showed us how to use them, and instructed us on taking no more than 3 or 4 pictures that were well thought out and thought-provoking. She then talked about how symmetry in color and geometric patterns were essential for great paintings and photographs. After a frustrating time with reflected light, I was rewarded with some good shots and just in time, too. The photographer declared that our time in this room was up, and we followed her once more as she led us to an internal courtyard where all Louvre visitors end up at one point or another. Every single time I have been to the Louvre, whether in a tour or not, I have visited that courtyard. We were told to capture 5 aspects of a single statue of our choosing: One picture of relative size… One picture of an interesting point of view… One picture of movement… One of an overlooked detail... And finally, one artistic picture of the placard that told you about the sculpture. I quickly chose a sculpture and started taking pictures. Unfortunately, two other children (a little brother and a sister), chose the same statue. When we returned to the room where we met the photographer, she led us to a projector room, and displayed all our photos. Each camera had its own section of the slide show. The brother I mentioned earlier went first. Later when mine were displayed, the kid had the nerve to say things like… “He totally copied me!” “These are my pictures!” This infuriated me greatly! At one point, I went and talked to the photographer and my Mom, came back, and found him in the same position I had been in a minute before! Before we left, Katherine said goodbye to her two French friends she had made. She had learned enough French to be able to communicate! Go Katherine! Overall we had a fun time. It was cool to work with a professional photographer who spoke proficient English. It was also nice that we got tripods for the cameras, since there are no flashes allowed in the Louvre, tripods solve the light problem by allowing the camera to stay still for a long time and take in enough light. As we left the Louvre we decided to go for Ramen Noodles. What a tasty to way to end a fun day!