Oh Paris! Le sigh…

These were not the ideal shooting conditions, as idyllic as the scene might appear. This is all handheld, btw, no tripod, and here’s the rest of the sad tripod story.

To get to this spot, you have to walk to the top of the Arc de Triomphe. My first few times there, I did not even know you could get to the top! I felt quite dumb when I found out you can walk up about 20,000 stairs to get here.

Once I got up there, I staked out a position with my tripod, and then Frenchy McFrenchface came over and told me I could not use my tripod. I explained that I was an arteeeest, and surely he would in the 19th century no one asked the impressionists to put their easels away. This was a losing argument, although I still think it’s a pretty good one. It will work one day, and I won’t give up this line of persuasion.

So that security guard shut me down, but I felt like there was still an opening. So I asked my friends Matt Knisely and Curtis Simmons to watch my stuff while I went for Persuasion Level 2. He was standing in a little glass wind-proof cage (which I wish I had later when I took this shot!). I motioned for him to open up so he could be subjected to Level 2. I didn’t have my tablet, so I pulled out my phone and started going through my photos. I think this helped to show him I took all of this terribly seriously. Eventually, I talked him into it! He said, sure, no problem, as long as I collapsed the tripod between shots. I was so excited!

I started taking photos, and then 10 minutes later, another security guard came over and told me no. I motioned over at the glass box and said, “But that other Frenchy McFrenchface already told me it was okay!”

The new security guard looked over at the box, then looked back at me and said, “Oh, but you see sir, that guard is now off duty.”

This guy was all business. I could see there was no way to overpower his mind with art and mojo, so I just had to go handheld for the rest of the night. By the time this scene appeared, there was a fierce and very cold wind… the kind of wind that needs hands-in-pockets-between-brackets.

I took 5 exposures from -2 to +2, but the +2 was too blurry, so I just processed the four shots from -2 to +1.