Spectacle lumière à la Tour Eiffel

The Scene:

Of course, the Eiffel Tower needs no introduction. It has become the symbol of both Paris and France.

 

This is also not the first shot of this majestic monument that I’ve published from my visit there. On my previous post, I shared trivia about how the French elite called this an eyesore (What a dramatic transformation it’s been – it is now an architectural marvel!), it’s original purpose, on how they feared if the city would rip it apart and how the take care of it’s exterior by giving it a paint job every few years! If you missed that post, I would suggest to read it at my blog or my flickr photostream.

 

As is customary with any landmark around the world, the Eiffel Tower has a light show as well. The Eiffel Tower played host to Paris' Millennium Celebration. On this occasion, flashing lights and four high-power searchlights were installed on the tower, and fireworks were set off all over it. An exhibition above a cafeteria on the first floor commemorates this event. Since then, the light show has become a nightly event. The searchlights on top of the tower make it a beacon in Paris' night sky, and the 20,000 flash bulbs give the tower a sparkly appearance every hour on the hour.

 

The Story:

 

This happened 3 months ago, but this night is still etched in my memory. After a really long day – literally, as we left our hotel room at half past seven and had already spent every drop of energy that we had in our body by that time – we reached the Eiffel tower at half past nine in the night. The scheduled sunset was at 10:05 PM and that meant that we had only about 35 minutes to kill before they highly hyped light show. I took position at quarter to ten and was already busy shooting the sunset. A few minutes later, I had the perfect blues and got that previous shot that I had published.

 

A customary glance at my phone told me that it was already 5 minutes past 10. The tower was already lit, but there was no “light show”. This meant that I had to wait there for one more hour. It was a really tough decision for 2 things. Although it was summer, it was a cold and windy day with gloomy sky and scattered thunderstorms. We were not prepared for the cold weather. All I had was a lowly fleece on a T-shirt and the weather was already taking its toll. A friend of mine was totally out and badly wanted some food. However, we didn’t want to miss that opportunity as we had to take an early train out of Paris to Zurich. That one hour that followed easily felt like two. No, make it three. While the other two friends that I was travelling with went back to the stairs and rested, I didn’t want to risk losing the spot that I had secured a few minutes earlier and had to stay put. Thankfully, there was a nice chap from New York who was standing next to me engaged in small talk and we discussed everything under the sun to kill time.

 

Btw, The show was a dud. It was not that super great thing that I had envisioned. However, I still like this picture.

 

The Shot:

 

 

Epilog:

 

When I put up my previous picture, there was an interesting discussion around the copyrights issue surrounding the tower at night. Here is an excerpt from the official Website.

 

Q: Is the publishing of a photo of the Eiffel Tower permitted?
A: There are no restrictions on publishing a picture of the Tower by day. Photos taken at night when the lights are aglow are subjected to copyright laws, and fees for the right to publish must be paid to the SNTE.

 

Here is Wikipedia has to say about this:

 

"The imposition of copyright has been controversial. The Director of Documentation for what was then the Société nouvelle d'exploitation de la tour Eiffel (SNTE), Stéphane Dieu, commented in January 2005, "It is really just a way to manage commercial use of the image, so that it isn't used in ways we don't approve." However, it also potentially has the effect of prohibiting tourist photographs of the tower at night from being published, as well as hindering non-profit and semi-commercial publication of images of the tower. Besides, French doctrine and jurisprudence traditionally allow pictures incorporating a copyrighted work as long as their presence is incidental or accessory to the main represented subject,a reasoning akin to the De minimis rule. Thus, SETE could not claim copyright on photographs of panoramas of Paris incorporating the lit tower."

 

While I don't intend to sell this picture, I do wish that it be known that the sole purpose of the copyright symbols is to make sure that the image doesn't get used commercially. Let me know if you wish to use it for non-commercial purposes and I'll be happy to share.