I do recommend you visit the weekly photo magazine Left Bank Lens from Paris.  The photographer, Don Smith, has been trading email with me once more, and we’ve been chatting this week about something I saw on my fist trip to Paris many, many years ago.  And he sends along photographs of something really cool.

I'm walking around, shooting like I always do when I see a moving crew working away so I struck up a conversation with them.  They were just fine with me taking photos of them working and, when the owner came out, I was invited upstairs to take a few more shots.  Why people think the French are cold, I'll never know.

With the small winding staircases in France, there exists a great system to get someone moved into or out of their apartment.  Can you imagine moving an armoire up four stories in a small, winding staircase?

The solution is a combination of a crane and a lift, it can be parked in almost any space and some can reach as high as 13 stories.  They just avoid the staircase and bring things up the outside of the building and then through the window.