Travel · Chicago

La Tour, Looking Up

Eiffel Tower · Paris

Standing below the Eiffel Tower in Paris rain, looking straight up into the ironwork while the sky churned overhead, this frame came together in the quiet before everything changed. The top had been closed when we arrived. The clouds were heavy, the crowds restless, and the moment I had anticipated for a long time felt like it was slipping away.

We stayed anyway, working the ground-level angles, and then the rain eased, and the announcement came that the tower was open again. Before heading up, I tilted the lens skyward and let the latticework fill the frame against that dramatic, shifting sky. Patience had done exactly what it promised.