Place Masséna's checkerboard at blue hour

Place Masséna is the hinge of the city: Italianate arcades painted deep red ochre on two sides, a vast checkerboard of black and white paving underfoot, the Fontaine du Soleil at one end and, above it all, the seven kneeling figures of the Conversation à Nice sitting on their masts. It is the one square in Nice that is a graphic composition rather than a pretty view.

Blue hour is when it becomes a photograph. The arcades light up warm, the seven figures change colour on a slow cycle, the tram slides through leaving a light trail if you want one, and the wet-look paving picks up all of it. Shoot low along the checkerboard to make the pattern lead into the couple, then from the Promenade du Paillon side to get the fountain, the square and the masts stacked in one frame.

Daytime is not wasted, but it is different: the checkerboard reads best from above or in raking morning light, and the red arcades hold colour even under flat cloud. Rain is a gift here — the whole square turns reflective.

Things to know: trams cross the square continuously and quietly, so a photographer keeps someone watching the track. The paving is genuinely slippery when wet. And the square is public and busy every evening — this is a frame you take in among people, not with the place to yourself, which is why the tighter compositions along the arcades tend to beat the wide ones.