Connecting Falling Snow with Photographer Gordon Parks in Paris

About a week ago, when the first snow of 2015 was falling in the DC area, where I live, and I was watching the beauty of it from my window, my thoughts turned briefly to the following facts.  In 1950, the great American Photographer Gordon Parks spent nearly two years  assigned to Life Magazine's Paris bureau.  The falling snow reminded me of that fact, because I'd recently read it in one of the volumes of his autobiography, To Smile in Autumn.  One of its chapters reveals how much Parks enjoyed his time in Paris.  Lines from that chapter which my area's recent snowfall reminded me of reads as follows.

 

Snow was falling on Paris rooftops when at last I sat down to the piano and started fingering an original theme that had come to me one night . . .

 

His autobiography reveals that Parks always dreamed of becoming a concert pianist; however, when he was a child, his father discouraged Gordon's pursuit of that dream.  His father thought a career as a professional concert artist was more for girls; so he allowed Gordon's sisters to take piano lessons but not Gordon.  With his mother's encouragement, Gordon used to sneak and practice piano on the family's Kimball Upright piano, while his father was not at home.  So he did learn music to a degree, but he never pursued it as a career.  

 

Snow-covered Paris Rooftops

During Parks' assignment to Life Magazine's Paris bureau, he rented a baby grand piano, not so much for playing but mainly to fill space in the living room of the home where he and his wife Sally and their children lived. Gordon Parks appreciated many of the classical composers (Bach, Beethoven, Prokofiev, Rachmaninoff, Mozart, Brahms, and others), and he eventually composed some pieces himself.  A musician/ conductor friend, Dean Dixon whom he knew in Paris, promised to perform one of Parks' works when he finished it.  To that end, Parks started recording the piano parts and sent them to a friend in New York, who  assisted with final orchestrations.

When one reads the autobiography To Smile in Autumn and other books by and about Gordon Parks, one is reminded that Gordon Parks was a skilled writer.  He's pretty well known as the creator/ director of the movies Shaft and The Learning Tree.  He also wrote nonfiction books other than the volumes of his autobiography, plus he wrote lovely poetry (Eyes with Winged Thoughts).  

 

Gordon Parks was a renaissance man.  And to think watching falling snow reminded me of that fact.