Over the Christmas winter holidays a few years ago while I was living in Paris, a few of us found ourselves stranded, orphaned and a little alone in the city while all our friends went home to visit their families across France and the world. We decided to band together over one common goal: to visit and photograph Paris’ most beautiful and intriguing metro stations.
Hiding beneath the city, often going unnoticed by rushing commuters, left unappreciated by tourists anxious to get up above ground to the Louvre, we’d noticed or seen pictures of the artworks lying beneath Paris’ streets. We wanted to pay homage to them and see them for ourselves.
It was that weird period between Christmas and New Years where no one really knows what day it is or who they are, so the stations were uncrowded, allowing us to capture them on some of the least busy days of the entire year.
We pried ourselves out of our warm beds early each morning for a few days and met in the dark and cold winter air to traipse around the city riding the metro on our little adventure all day. We watched trains come and go, conductors wave or wave us out of the way, we followed rainbow tunnels and rode the travelator through bright red futuristic halls. We saw yet another side of the Paris we all loved for its depth of neverending secrets and beauties.
This is our love letter to the unsung beauty of the Paris metro.
