Have you ever wondered what a place looks like free of crowds and noise?
Luke Shepard, a student at The American University of Paris, created a time-lapse video based on over 2,000 images of Paris to show just that.
Anne Ditmeyer of IntelligentTravel, the blog from National Geographic, spoke with Shepard about the project, entitled Le Flâneur, who told them that the idea came from his love of walking the streets of Paris at night:
As to where the inspiration came from, it was my love for walking around Paris late at night. I have walked home from opposite ends of Paris very early in the morning after long nights out with friends, and it is always amazing. In most areas, Paris dies in the middle of the night: there is no one to be seen, the lights are turned off on all the monuments, and very few cars pass by. I feel as though this video shows this other side of Paris that I love. I feel that not everyone sees it, especially not tourists who might spend most of their time exploring the city during the day. As a night owl, this is the part of Paris I often see.
This project harks back to a similar project by Corinne Vionnet, who superimposed hundreds of images of world monuments to create a project called "Photo Opportunities." The notion behind these two pieces is the same: showing a side of a place, building or monument that isn't normally seen by tourists and the public.
Shepard's video is incredibly fun to watch, like taking a two-minute vacation.
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