Capturing Street Photos in the City of LightMichael Gilbert explores Paris with a "time machine" (his camera) and the Tamron SP 24-70mm VC lens. |
Article by Jenn Gidman Images by Michael Gilbert |
To photographer Michael Gilbert, the two greatest cities in the world are New York and Paris-which explains why he splits his time between his home workshop in Hawaii and a studio in the City of Light. "If you're a photographer in Paris, how do you beat all those backdrops in one place?" he says. "The architecture alone that you can see spans 2,000-plus years: Romanesque, Gothic, Renaissance, Rococo, Art Nouveau, Art Deco, modern...it's got it all!" |
In April, Michael spent Fashion Week in Paris, exploring the 20 arrondissements with his photo gear in hand. "My camera is like a time machine," he says. "And my lens selection is simple: the Tamron SP 24-70mm VC lens (I don't want to be a target in a big city, so I tape the name of my camera manufacturer with black tape and just carry one lens). I usually leave the 24-70 at F/5.6 and ISO 800 in 'P' mode and just press the shutter button when it's right. The Vibration Compensation feature is always on to help eliminate camera shake while I'm on the move." |
Michael's favorite times to head out into the French capital are in the early morning ("there's wonderful light then"), late afternoon ("I love the shadows"), or when it's grey and rainy ("the best time to create portraits"). He also enjoys converting many of his images to black and white for a classic, timeless look. "I often say: Is it a great photo or is it just colorful?" he explains. "Color can sometimes confuse, while black-and-white is straight to the point, no messing around. It's either good or not, based on the content and composition. As soon as you go black-and-white, everything just jumps out of the image." |
A core element of many of Michael's photos are the dramatic skies overhead. "Paris is at the crossroads of European air traffic," he explains. "At any given time when you look up, there are all of these planes at 30,000 feet leaving amazing contrails in the sky. As luck usually has it, the cloud formations in the sky add balance to the scene, so it's like looking at a blue-and-white Jackson Pollock piece, like someone painting the sky with jagged lines." |
Michael has adopted an on-the-move shooting style that means he doesn't even always look through the viewfinder. "Most people bring the camera up to whatever level their face is at," he says. "That may be their view of the world, but if you do that, you're probably missing out on a good percentage of what's in front of you. You need to think about what it might be like if you were a bird flying overhead and need to look down, or if you were lying down on your back and looking up at the sky. I often wonder what the world would look like to a cat or a dog." |
To achieve this varied perspective, Michael likes to shoot low, often with the camera below his waist. "When I know my camera and lens like the 24-70 so well, I know what's going to be in the picture," he says. "I wait to encounter certain moments, then just turn and take the picture. That was how I took both the picture of a man sitting at a café with an interesting-looking mural behind him, as well as a group of people standing over their reflections on one of the terraces at the Pompidou Centre. I just turned to my side, pressed the shutter button on my right hip, and moved on."
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Part of the magic of Paris is finding and photographing the street performers who entertain tourists and residents all day and into the night. "There are actors and musicians on every bridge, in the metro, even on the train itself," Michael says. "On one of the bridges was a guy I'd see all the time blowing huge bubbles. I kept going back to visit him. I gave him a small donation and asked if he could blow bubbles in the direction I thought would make for the best picture." |
Visitors who want a break from their outdoor treks will be pleased to find a variety of photo-friendly indoor venues in Paris. "One of the nice things about this city is that you can even take pictures (without flash, of course) in many of the museums," Gilbert says. "I took one of my favorite pictures in the National Museum of Modern Art in the Pompidou Centre. I was looking at this great piece of a man wearing a strange, tall hat when I spotted this woman on the other side of the room wearing a similar telescopic-looking hat. It looked like the Eiffel Tower! I could see she was moving toward the photo, so I waited till she got close. Of course, she didn't position herself exactly where I wanted her to go, so I asked her in my bad French if she would step closer to the artwork so I could take her picture next to it. She laughed, but she did it. I emailed her a copy of the image and also sent a copy to the Pompidou. It was a neat way to meet someone in Paris." |