I Like What I See In Your Rear View

During my visit to Paris last year I had made it a point to make time to shoot the sculpture at the Palais Royale-Musee du Louvre Metro station, known as Le Kiosque des Noctambules (created by the artist Jean-Michel Othoniel). The entire bouche de metro is enveloped by two huge crown-shaped sculptures made of aluminum and colored glass. While it’s a bit odd-looking it’s incredibly cool at the very same time.

When I finally got there I encountered huge masses of people gathered around to watch a group of street performers. I made numerous attempts to maneuver around the crowd for quite some time in the hopes of getting a clear shot of the sculpture but it became pretty obvious that it just wasn’t going to happen.

As I walked away from the crowd to head across the street for a coffee break, I had to pass by a row of scooters and motor bikes which were parked along the curb. I caught a glimpse of part of the sculpture reflecting in the rear view mirror of one of the parked scooters and I decided to take the shot so that’s what you see in this image.

Aside from being a fun experience it was a learning lesson too because it taught me that there is more than one way to get the shot you want, you just have to be creative, patient and persistent. As it turns out, this is one of my favorite images and each time I look at it, I remember the circumstances that led me to be able to capture it.