Fontaine de la Concorde at Night

The Place de la Concorde is the largest square in Paris and is best known for its obelisk with the golden tip.  But the obelisk is flanked on the north and south by a pair of ornate fountains and I have been trying to get a decent picture of one of them for seven years, ever since I first saw them.  It’s always been something:  fountains turned off, lights turned off, lousy light, etc.  In fact, when I came here late yesterday afternoon, it looked like  it might be a repetition of the same story.   The south fountain was both dry and dark.  But the north fountain was running.  Now, I only had to wait and hope they would turn the lights on when it got dark.

Fortunately, they did and the image above is the result.  The building in the background  is the Hotel de Crillon which apparently is being renovated.  The brightly colored design is actually a scrim to hide the unsightly construction work.  In the past, these scrims were graphic designs, often a replication of the structure being repaired, but now the French have taken the opportunity to help finance their renovation projects by renting the scrims as advertising billboards.  In this case, the company is Swatch.

The photograph is another photomerge (two images), primarily because my chosen shooting location (to block out some unwanted objects) put me a little too close to get it all in one shot.  (Technical Data: Nikon 800E on tripod with 24-70mm f/2.8 lens set at 24mm. Exposure: 5 secs. @ f/16, EV= -1.33, ISO 200)