If you’re a traveler, you probably know the feeling. Over the second glass of wine at the bistro or trattoria, between the appetizer and main course, you turn to your partner and wonder aloud, “Wouldn’t it be fun to live here?” During their many foreign adventures, Boston photographer Michael Malyszko and his partner, Judith Hughes, asked each other that question repeatedly, replying “Yes” too many times to count. Slowly their notion of living overseas became a dream, then a goal, then a plan, and finally a reality. So they rented out their studio, packed up the family (their 9 year old daughter and two lab mixes) and moved to Paris for the year.  

It was a year of wonder and wine, museums and movies, and above all, photography. Virtually every day Michael would venture out and explore the neighborhoods, famous and not, of their new home town. Cafes, parks, metro stations, museums, voting booths, boutiques, firemen’s balls, all were subjects for his camera. Working out of an improvised “dry” darkroom set up in their bedroom, he would make work prints and tape them up all over their apartment. They were surrounded with images. The drearier winter and spring months were spent this way, but then as the days grew longer, the weather milder, and their time left in Paris shorter, it was time for Betty and Rita to take center stage…