I love cities. I love the perspective they afford you. I love nature for this same reason but I suppose between the two, at least thus far in my life, I've been drawn to the city. As my wife and I were walking along the Seine we came across a group of people dancing, nothing out of the ordinary, though the music and the dancing did seem to have a unique "French-ness" to it, which of course filled us with that sense of romance that Paris is so famous for. If one were able to turn their head left from this picture and look back down the river then they'd see The Cathedral of Notre Dame across the river on the island. We walked further west up the river from here and meandered across the bridges.
I like this picture because my eye seems to read it from left to right, where you first see the black and white couple, something you seem to see much more of in Paris than you see in New York, then there is another couple that almost serve as a bookend couple to them, then the eye follows the line of dancers to the couple of women dancing together. I suppose because I hadn't noticed them the first time or two that I looked at the picture I tended to like them even more when I did discover them.
The music was being played from one of those old portable stereo systems that were known as "ghetto-blasters." It was arranged on a set of steps above the river where we were standing, facing them, playing a sort of French-swing. They've seemed to make a resurgence in New York as well, those portable stereos, jamboxes, boomboxes....
(photographer unknown, found on internet)
