It started in the afternoon, really, with performances in the street. This is the view from my window of a group of dancers in the square.
They were filming a Bollywood movie at Gare de Lyon. I was the only one tall enough to be able to see; this picture was taken at arm’s length.
The clock tower at Gare de Lyon and its reflection in the glass building across the street. I nearly got left behind trying to get the second picture: I kept trying, because my camera wouldn’t capture the fantastic quality of light there. I could’ve used a better camera on this trip, but I rarely use it at home, so it's hardly worth it.
This alley between two apartment buildings was absolutely packed with people, and it was one of my favorite things that night (not the best; that’s still to come). They were projecting these colored lights into the windows and playing really cool techno music in time with the lights. It got old after a while, but for some time, it was very cool.
There were lots of weird light displays that night.
But this was my favorite: a HUGE projection into the sky at the Tour Montparnasse, which could be seen from everywhere in the city. We loved it and spent about an hour there, and we weren’t the only ones: everyone was drawn to it, exactly like moths to a flame, fixated and immobile. A little creepy and a little cool.
From close up, the big beam separated into dozens of smaller ones arranged in a grid.
The first view of the crowds around the base of the lights.
Absolute fascination. And oh, the number of X-Files jokes I made that night! (We do all look like alien abduction victims, though, don’t we? And up close, everyone was grinning and staring into the lights.)
Not sure what happened here, but I quite like the effect. Nothing new, to be sure, but pretty.
People kept sticking their hands into the lights or climbing up to sit on the boxes that housed them. They couldn’t get close enough.
I love this angle. This was from when we ventured into the crowds around the lights.
A final parting shot. I think the lights were meant to be a reflection of the Tour Montparnasse, which is right behind them (and which, despite its reputation, is actually a lovely, elegant, and stealthy skyscraper. It just suffers from being out of context).
Next we went to my neighborhood, since that was a major center of the displays, and also we wanted to sit down and have something to eat or drink. On the way to my apartment, we stopped in this little cathedral around the corner (St. Merri).
This was one of the art displays suspended from the ceiling. It reminds me of a molecule.
I thought this was kind of hilarious and awesome: chairs on the ceiling! Why?
This didn’t answer my question, but it did put it somewhat more in context!
We also went to another cathedral, where we watched a video about blind people discovering an elephant. It was actually a very cool documentary-type thing, but it was dark and so we all started falling asleep, and that was the end of our night. But it was very cool, and definitely worth it for the light-tower.
