Paris in the spring

The value of much photography only becomes evident as time passes - something that is undoubtedly true of C'etait Paris en 1970. As the images in this Guardian gallery illustrate, the project captured the French capital as it was in May 1970, on the cusp between two decades - deliberately exemplified visually by the mixture of colour and black-and-white photos.

The Eiffel Tower features in three of the selected images, like a beacon visible from afar in all directions, but the focus is not on dominant internationally famous landmarks but on everyday street scenes. In many ways, Paris is recognisable, particularly the traffic and the cafes with tables set up outside to face the world. But, in other ways, it seems unfamiliar; it's remarkable, for instance, that at this point many Parisians still lived without running water in their apartments.

The project saw the city divided into 1,755 squares on a grid system, with one photographer assigned to each square. The result of this systematic process was a portrait that can be considered more comprehensive and representative than most. Obviously, it would take a lot of coordination, but I'd certainly suggest that instigating such projects in other cities would reap similarly rich rewards - even if those rewards aren't necessarily readily apparent at the time.