In Balance

          This was part of the apparatus that raised the pedestrian drawbridge and Chateau de Vincennes. I'm not showing you its picture because I'm a medieval pulley system nerd, but rather because I'm a design nerd. I snapped the photo on a cold, overcast visit to the chateau because I loved the repetition of the three large circles, and the rhythm of the diminishing sizes of the smaller circles. The gentle s-curves of the balance's arms echo the "s" shape that the links of chain make, and this pleases my designer's eye.

          I composed the photo to accentuate the visual and actual balance of the apparatus, for it reminds me of a set of hand-held scales. What is being weighed? Perhaps, given where I took it, the history of the French crown.