Paris is the most filmed city on earth, which is exactly the problem. This pack was shot to avoid the postcard: fewer wide establishing shots of the Eiffel Tower, more of the city as it actually moves.

The aerials trace the Seine from Pont de Bir-Hakeim east to Île Saint-Louis, rising over zinc rooftops and the chimney pots that give the skyline its texture. Ground-level work follows the light — Saint-Germain at first light when the bakeries are still loading, the Marais in late afternoon when the narrow streets go amber, and Montmartre after rain, when the cobbles hold the streetlamps.

There’s real seasonal range here. Plane trees in full leaf along the quais in June. Bare branches and low grey light over the Tuileries in January. Wet pavement on Rue Crémieux. Snow dusting the Luxembourg Gardens, which happens rarely enough to be worth having in an archive.

Detail shots carry the sequences between the big moments: a bouquiniste unlocking a green box along the Quai de Conti, steam off a coffee on a zinc counter, the Art Nouveau metro entrance at Abbesses, hands folding a newspaper, pigeons lifting off the Place des Vosges arcade. These are the shots most Paris libraries skip, and the ones that make an edit feel observed rather than assembled.