A Leaf at the Feet of the Arc de Triomphe

Standing in the Streets of Paris

For some reason, French drivers don’t seem a bit phased to find a number of foreign tourists standing in the middle of their Boulevards taking photos of their monuments. Even, it seems, if those same tourists are photographing at night. I took a number of photographs on the streets surrounding the Arc de Triomphe de l’Étoile, namely I camped out in the middle of the Avenue des Champs-Élysées. Somehow I felt safer with the Parisian drivers than I do with my local Springfield drivers!

Side Shooter

This photo is from the side of the Arc where I became fascinated with this leaf that planted itself in my shot. Enjoy!

The Golden Spiral

Fibonacci

Before we left for Paris I reread The Da Vinci Code. The twists of the plot line repetitively find a home in the Fibonacci sequence, a mathematical integer sequence where the first two numbers are 0, 1 and all subsequent numbers are the sum of the preceding two. What is truly staggering is the number of places you can see this form represented in nature, music, art, etc.

One of Many

One of many places I spotted the expression was in the spiral staircase that takes visitors to the top of the Arc de Triomphe. What made it stick out to me was the slightly golden color of the stairwell which was bathed in some sort of halogen light. Enjoy!