Magical Moulin Rouge

The Moulin Rouge, built in the same year as the Eiffel Tower (1989), is a cabaret club on Place Blanche in Montmartre. We live about five minutes walk from the Moulin Rouge and I confess that I've never been to a show there! I'm spoilt and have the luxury of being able to say 'we can always go tomorrow'.

In 1915 the Moulin Rouge was destroyed by a fire and only reopened six years later in 1921. If you emerge from Blanche metro station today, one of the first things you will see is the red windmill, perched on top of the cabaret club.

I tend to pass the Moulin Rouge without paying too much attention. I'm usually on my way home from somewhere and cast it a nonchalant glance. If I'm with the kids they often insist that we stop so they can have a little 'session' standing above the metro vent on place Blanche just in front of the Moulin Rouge. Like so.

However, armed with my new camera, which takes wonderful pictures in low light, I wanted to have a go at capturing some photos of the red windmill looking magical.

Et voila, at dusk.

After dark.



As my new camera allows me to control the shutter speed I also wanted to get some blurred images of the rotating blades. Here is a photo taken with a one second shutter speed.

And here we have a three second shutter speed.


Zooming in.


Weeeeeeeee!