Louvre Reflections || Paris, France

A week's vacation in Paris with my wife meant photo opportunities galore! Sunrise at Notre Dame, sunset at the Eiffel Tower - it was going to be great. Unfortunately mother nature had other plans and the weather ended up being mainly overcast and rainy. As the French would say, "C'est la vie." We weren't too down about it - we were still in Paris after all! I resolved to make the best of it and focused on blue hour shots, combining the soft ambient light with the beautiful lights of the city. On our last evening, I really wanted to shoot the Louvre with this specific composition in mind but it had been raining steadily for hours. Umbrella in hand, I decided to give it a shot anyway and see what I could get. The benefit of shooting on a rainy evening is that I was able to get this with almost no other people in the picture with the exception of a couple who kept taking umbrella selfies (apparently it's a thing) in the middle of the frame (instead of taking pictures of each other they kept passing a phone back and forth and taking selfies - of course). Another great side effect of the rain was the beautiful reflections of the Louvre Palace and Pyramid. I love the harmony of this image with the warm tones in the buildings and lights balancing the cool blues of the sky and reflections. Definitely worth standing out in the rain with an umbrella over my camera setup for an hour.