Paris in the downpour

Last Thursday, as gale-force winds blew through much of western Europe, Magazine photographer Dan Dry embarked on his own whirlwind photo-documentation of undergraduate life at the University of Chicago Center in Paris.

Dry shot the center—at 6, rue Thomas Mann, it’s two blocks from the Bibliothèque nationale de France (BnF) and across the street from the new home of the Université Paris Diderot-Paris 7—from morning ’til night. He also wanted to photograph Chicago undergrads against a few Paris landmarks, and five students stepped up to the plate, meeting him near the Arc de Triomphe on a cloudy Saturday afternoon. That shot complete, it was off by Métro to the Tour Eiffel. But the day had darkened, and the scene turned into an unplanned silhouette.

Après cela, le déluge.

M.R.Y.

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Photos, row 1 (left to right): A garden connects the Paris Center’s three buildings; scene from a Paris Center classroom; third-years Caroline Suh and Aparna Hirve chat over their texts while fourth-year Koh Kim descends the lobby stairs.

Row 2 (left to right): Students study in the great room, which also serves as the largest classroom, a conference site, a common room, and the center’s library; The campus, illuminated at dusk, shot from the nearly completed Université Paris Diderot-Paris 7, which opens this fall, bringing thousands of French students into the area; At the Arc de Triomphe, winter-quarter students Zarah Carranco, Jennifer Kye, Mary Soo Anderson, Raymond Perez, and Erindira Tejada consult their map.

Row 3 (left to right): At the Tour Eiffel, it was about to rain: the students’ silhouettes disappear into the monument’s base; minutes later, tourists seek shelter from the storm.

Photos by Dan Dry

January 24, 2007