Top of the world! By Claire BARBARIN

I took the first picture in Saint-Etienne, on February 17^th. It was around 5pm. I had come back from skiing. I was at the bottom of a building next to the one where my grandmother lives. Around me there were other buildings, plus cars and trees. I could hear my little brother and my parents talking, and a car was coming so I had to take this picture in a hurry. The temperature was not so cold; it was a very nice day.

I took the second picture a bit later, just before having dinner. The night had already fallen. So I could see the light of the streetlights. My mother was talking to me and I could hear the cars on the motorway. In fact this sound was muffled because the motorway is quite far. There was a little breeze and I felt uncomfortable on the balcony.

The first picture shows a building in the sunlight. Trees hide most of the building and at the bottom we can see the shadow of the trees. On the bottom left-hand corner there are garages. The sky is blue, without clouds (here we are above the layer of smog). We can see all the floors of the building. It’s a low-angle shot.

The second picture shows the view we have from the 15^th floor balcony. It’s already night but in the background we can see a line of lights. On the left there is a building and on the right there is a glass panel which separates us from our neighbour. All the street lights are switched on so we can recognize the city.

In a city (here it’s Saint-Etienne), depending on where you are, you can feel very powerful if you are in a skyscraper or a high building, because you have a view on everything in the city. However, at the bottom of a tall building like this, you feel like an ant. Incidentally, in Saint-Etienne, there are a lot of parks and trees and it is not very far from the mountains, so it’s very easy to escape the pollution for a while.

The scenery changes continuously because the light changes throughout the day. When the sun goes down and the night appears, it’s quite pretty because it’s dark but the city is illuminated.

With these two pictures I wanted to show that the city is full of contrasts, that sometimes you can feel small, at other times tall, and that there is darkness but also light and hope...