Turning Through Night

Night had settled over Paris, and the carousel was turning. Its lights spun into bright rings, and behind it, above the trees, the Eiffel Tower stood in gold against the dark.
The tower may be the most photographed structure on earth, and I did not want to photograph it the way everyone does. So I let it step back, and gave the leading role to something smaller, older in spirit, and full of motion.
I held the exposure open and let the carousel turn through it. Its lights wrote themselves into circles while the tower stayed perfectly sharp. One frame, two kinds of time.
That contrast became the poetry of the picture. The carousel felt like the life of the city, bright and quick and always circling. The tower felt like France itself, standing unmoved while everything turns around it. Paris holds both at once, which may be why the world finds it so easy to love.
I remember the lightness of that evening, the sense of standing inside something that would keep going long after I had packed up and walked away. The picture returns that feeling whenever I look at it.
The composition lets the small thing lead and the great one stand behind, movement in front, iron above the trees. The night turns, and the tower keeps time.