Paris ça va

France, the French, Paris. Ahhh life is good. Espresso coffee’s, croissants, cigarettes. Yes I’ll take all of that thanks.

When it comes to being a photographer, you always take photos, you always take your camera everywhere you go and Paris would be no different. Oh I had grand and glorious ideas in my head of exactly what shots I wanted to take, from where and what time and what equipment I would need to pull it off. Right.

You see when you go to a city like Paris, with a camera, with intention of getting some great photography work done, your visions will never go according to plan. I soon realised that no matter where you go, at what time you want to do it and how prepared you think you are, there is always something that will put you off and make you change what you were thinking you wanted to photograph. There are people everywhere! At all times of day or night. Now this is fine if thats what you want for some street photography, but I had plans of taking a wonderful long exposure night scene with the Eiffel tower in the background, from a bridge on the river Seine, with some water flowing gently beneath my feet. No, that was never going to happen. There are just too many people to get in your way.

And if im honest they put me off my game a bit.

So you have to adapt, you have to change your thinking of what you wanted, and like any sailor will tell you, conditions good or bad will always be there, you have to use them to your advantage to sail efficiently to get where you want to go. In other words you have to use what you have to help you. Also though, after a long day of travelling around all I really wanted was a big bloody beer!

The truth is that I didn’t plan well enough for the shots that I wanted, I didn’t have the local experience of knowing the best view points, best time to be at those points and the best way to use all those conditions, so I didn’t get the pictures I wanted, but I came away with some other great pictures that I had no idea I wanted. You don’t know what you don’t know?

So I started to use those people in the shots, I also changed tack in what I wanted to capture. I have been working on a project over many years called miniature models and this would be the perfect place to get some pictures to add to that part of my portfolio.

Let me also tell you this, the french are actually great, I am a little biased because I used to live in France for many years, but they really do have an awesome country. They have got life worked out great and they were very helpful and accommodating. It is a beautiful country with most things going well, and for me it is certainly a place I could live in, again.

I do love France, the way of life, the brasseries, the night life, the coffee, the croissants, the beer. Yep I could definitely live there again. And I can’t recommend it enough, it is a place full of history, and interesting things to see and do, I mean they have Asterix and Obelix, one of my favourite cartoons of all time.