C'est la vie! Robert Doisneau photo exhibit a picture window into the world of Paris

Somewhere in the middle of the more than 100 black-and-white photographs in "Robert Doisneau's Paris," a new show opening today at the Portland Museum of Art, you will possibly have to face a conundrum.

First you will be drawn in by the images of life in Paris and surrounding suburbs from the 1930s through the 1980s. You will laugh at the photo of a couple looking in a gallery window, the woman's attention on fine art and the man's glance toward a racy shot of a woman's naked backside. Or the shot of construction workers erecting a statue of Venus, their hands hoisting the statue by…