La Défense, after the rain

The story behind the photo

The esplanade of La Défense just after a shower, with the paving still wet enough to return the towers upside down and a sky turning pink and blue above them. The reflection takes up the entire lower half of the frame and the real buildings the upper half, so the picture lies almost as much below the horizon as above it.

Wet stone is the only reason to be out at that moment, and it lasts about ten minutes. I lowered the camera almost to ground level, because a reflection in paving only exists at a low angle: from eye level, the same square is simply grey and damp. The joints between the slabs then become lines leading into the picture, and the whole surface turns into a second sky.

The light is post-storm light, cool and clean, with the last of the sun hitting the glass on the left and a bank of cloud still breaking up overhead. It gives the towers colour without hardness, which is rare in a district made entirely of reflective surfaces.

I have photographed this place many times, and it is usually hostile: too big, too grey, too crowded or too empty. Rain is what redeems it. For a few minutes, the ground becomes the most interesting thing in the quarter.

I wanted an image in which an architecture famous for being cold is caught being briefly, accidentally, beautiful.