An impromptu trip to Paris last weekend as a bit of a break and check out some of the sights and sounds of this famous city. I was travelling light , one camera body , one lens and a Joby gorilla pod . Thats pretty minimal for me as usually I have at least 2-3 lenses , and a carbon fibre Manfrotto tripod but as this was supposed to be a break with Judith I thought i’d see how it went with minimal kit.
On our fist night in paris I regretted my decision not to bring the tripod. the Gorilla pod is fine if there’s something at the right height in exactly the position you want for your composition but when we went to photograph the Eiffel tower I knew this wasn’t going to work
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I was wanting to frame the top of the tower with the trees so went hand held at an iso of 3200 at 1/30 sec f5.6. its sharp enough to enlarge but not recommended. Luckily the 5Diii is good in low light so just about got away with it.
Judith was keen to check out the Lafayette store as its got about a hundred floors of shopping, luckily its also quite an interesting building with a magnificent domed ceiling, bags of herbal infusions , the most expensive bottle of wine I’ve ever seen at 55,000 euros and some pretty cool little areas. I was shooting with my favourite the lens , the canon 24-70 ii 2.8L . As sharp as a prime and gives a lovely soft bokeh wide open
Next day we headed up to the scare couer and montmartre area, street performers , a couple getting engaged to a live band , sax players and general hawkers with miniature Eiffel towers for 1 euro, who buys that rubbish ?? and the usual knockoff Louis Vuitton bags all laid out on a sheet for a quick get away in case the gendarmerie show up
The Pompadu centre is the big modern art draw in Paris and just behind it is the Salvador Dali water park , themed around a lot of Dalis ideas. Love him or loathe him , his work is thought provoking and iconic. I like his work , Judith really doesn’t , oh well .
There’s a famous bridge where couples put a padlock around the wire mesh of the bridge with their initials on it and then throw the key into the Seine. The bridge is literally falling apart with the weight of padlocks on it , if I was a scrap metal dealer … just saying : )
There’s a guy called Steve Villa Massone who wheels his piano out onto the streets then plays the most incredible classical piano pieces. We stood and listened for a while , and took a few pics. Here he’s playing in front of the Opera house.
So , just a quick visit to Paris , now back to work ! Thanks for reading