It’s easy to take the same pictures that everyone else takes, especially when you travel. They’re great pictures, that’s why everyone takes them. But sometimes being caught up in the grandeur of a place makes you miss out on the details. I know that I do.

But I think that I used to be better. Looking back through some photos of a trip I took to Paris in 2011, it seems that the younger version of myself understood this better than I do now. I have so many photos from that trip of random windows, or up close statues, or streets. And now, 5 years later, those are the pictures that intrigue me. Everyone knows what the Eiffel Tower looks like, but not everyone has been there to experience the details of it.

And it’s those details that I think my younger self was better at capturing. So here are some of them.