Paris is such a wonderful city to photograph offering so much potential from the iconic views to small detail allowing you to put your own creative stamp on the city.
I have just returned from a fantastic and very productive trip but while I was there a funny thing happened to me. I had arrived at the Trocadero early one morning to shoot the Eiffel Tower at sunrise. I had set up my tripod and composed my picture with the water canons prominent in the foreground pointing towards the tower. It was then just a question of waiting for the light which was actually somewhat disappointing being virtually cloudless with little colour. But hey ho as I preach to my workshop clients you have to make the most of the situation regardless of the conditions and so I continued with the shoot. However as I was waiting I noticed a figure with a camera walk into the scene. Now clearly he had just as much right to be there as me and how was he to know that I was using a wide angle lens which included him nicely in the top left hand corner of the frame! He was obviously looking for compositions and then, thankfully, he walked out of the frame and headed slowly towards me. As he approached I thought he looked vaguely familiar and then I realised that it was David Noton, one of the UK's best, and one of my favourite, Travel & Landscape photographers. Now I had met David before when we exhibited together and we struck up a conversation. As an ambassador for Canon David was in Paris for a few days testing a new camera using fast prime lenses hand held, something that was very alien to him. We chatted for a few minutes about how wonderful Paris was and how he was enjoying the freedom of hand holding these lenses and using them wide open to limit the depth of field. Then he said, let me take your picture and so I was delighted to have one of my hero photographers take my portrait in one of my favourite locations. So it just goes to show you never know who you might bump into when you're out shooting, it more than made up for what was a slightly disappointing sunrise!
David kindly sent me the image and here it is!
and here is my picture.
