River Thompson (photo) - PhotoCity Paris

Its early morning in Paris and the traffic circling the Arc de Triomphe is starting to slow. Golden light the same light that inspired such artists as Pierre-Auguste Renoir and Claude Monet illuminates the carved inside of the arch. Youll find several photos of the Arc de Triomphe (and equally familiar Eiffel Tower) among these pages but this is a book about so much more than a tourism tick-list of the French capitals highlights.

Our goal was to chronicle a day in the life of this great city from the perspective of a photographer who knows and loves it. We wanted to present not just the famous sights but also Pariss daily rhythms as a local would experience them. The book is loosely organised according to the passage of a day and night in the city: we start with savouring a coffee at one of the many corner cafes, take in a fruit-and-vegetable street market, admire the view of Pariss rooftops from the Galeries Lafayettes seventh floor terrace, and then, as true Parisian flneurs, leisurely explore the citys neighbourhoods and their signature experiences. We discover secret urban farms, streets of bijou boutiques, grand museums, classic and contemporary architecture. We end the day atop a hillside with a bottle of wine watching the sun set, before hitting one of Pariss jazz clubs. It would be impossible to capture all of Pariss incomparable variety but readers will discover a side to the city beyond the famous sights.

For a task of this scale, we sought a photographer for whom Paris was a source of inspiration. River Thompson who grew up in France shoots a variety of editorial stories around the world. For this book, says River, I wanted to capture the beautiful everyday moments in Paris: the sharp shadows in the morning, the colours, the sounds of locals, tourists and the quiet cobbled streets. Helping River was caption-writer Nicola Williams, a long-standing Lonely Planet writer who lives on the southern shore of Lake Geneva but regularly visits Paris, where she has spent years revelling in its extraordinary art, architecture, shopping and cuisine.

Between them, they photographed and described all these aspects of Parisian life. The result is this chronologically-ordered visual odyssey through one of the worlds great cities, a taste of Paris that may give first-time visitors fresh ideas of what to see and do, and also inspire long-time lovers of the French capital to make another trip to le gai Paris.