Paris looks charming no matter what perspective one is looking from. Its streets are truly magic everywhere. What I look for ultimately in every big city, however, is a panoramic view somewhere high, a hill or a tower. The Eiffel Tower never appeared appealing to me in these terms, since the top landmark of the city isn’t visible from there. Tour Montparnasse turned out to be perfect for this purpose, so on my second visit in the city it was a must-go-to spot. The views were breathtaking and the coolest “off-duty” activity there was finding landmarks and analyzing the routes we had been wandering on the previous days. Shooting itself was challenging due to quite strong wind. I needed to take around 8 perfectly sharp shots at dusk and I was shooting vertically from a tripod with a 70-200 tele-lens, with a 10s exposure. I used a high focal length in order to capture a maximum amount of details so that after stacking the images I would receive a crispy sharp and perfectly detailed panorama in super high resolution. Combining 100-150mm focal length with such an exposure was extremely difficult, because literally every little vibration would ruin a shot, even on a tripod, and the wind blows caused plenty of them. It took me tens of attempts to finally get those few vertical images covering every area of the city I was seeking, but I ultimately made it. The result: shining yellow streets and landmarks contrasting with beautiful Parisian townhouses touched by subtle blue cast. As a reward I could join my fiancee for a glass of champagne at the bar one floor down.
Location: Paris
