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"At that second I had a choice, to either jump back onto my tripod and try to capture the moment with a slow shutter speed to make the water smooth and soft or to catch the harsh moment of it. I decided for the later because of the clouds overhead. they looked a bit ragged and uneven and I liked the juxtaposition of the unruly elements surrounding these still and reflective nuns."

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"But on this day, while I was almost to my destination I ran across this man sitting on top of the pedestal, where one would normally expect to find a statue. He was watching the day unfold before him, unnoticed by most and ignored by others. As the city harshly and uncaringly rushed by him, the way cities tend to, I smiled at the idea of man imitating art instead of art trying to imitate man."

The metro in Paris is very efficient and simple to use, unlike New York City, the system that till this day, I can't fathom how non-New Yorkers navigate. In Paris, I had the metro system figured out within 5 minutes of landing. There are 14 main lines, 2 or 3 express lines, that for the most part, can take you anywhere you want within 20 minutes, or at least that's adage the localers will tout at you.

Life here as a metro commuter is not unlike any other major city. The trains are overcrowded, the people are cranky and in a never ending rush to get somewhere very important. The trains stall during rush hour and when the doors open, people fly out in a mad dash, while refusing to move on the escalators. In the train cars, everyone is a suspect for the mystery odor that has just contaminated the air, the handlebars are a teeming petri dish of various diseases that will eventually infect you. And on the rare occasion that you manage to get a seat, its next to someone, too loud, to sleepy or too young to know about personal space.

Yes, this is the life of all metro people and a system I've used daily for as long as I can remember. I understand this world, and know its rules well. Keep your right at all times, always stand behind the yellow line, don't make eye contact and most importantly trust your instincts, if you think someone is going to be bad news, they probably will be.

Then theres the uniform that metro people put on everyday; consisting of black, gray or dark blue. The color selection I can only image is supposed to make one blend into the crowd in hopes that you can have a nice peaceful commute with no one harassing you. It, doesn't work, a hassle free commute is about as rare as a rainbow. A small few realize this and on rare occasions you'll see someone that boldly stands out.

I live near the Gare St. Lazare, a busy train hub with many lines crossing through. The entrance to the subterranean platforms are covered with a giant clear dome allowing light to follow behind as you descend into the world of the metro.

Decorating the floor, about 2 levels down, directly underneath the dome opening is a working clock. A clock that I have marched on many times, before taking notice of it one day and immediately knew that there would be a photo to be had there.

On a day when I had a bit of time to focus on creating this image, I went with my camera, tripod and shutter remote. I choose a time when I knew the station would be relatively calm, I entered through the dome and started descending down the escalator. I took my time and watched the clock on the floor as I did. I wanted to see what it looked like as I went down and see what was happening around it.

None of the people walking over it seemed to notice that they were hurriedly passing to their destination while marching over a giant clock. After doing some reconnaissance, I ended up choosing a quiet corner on the level just overhead where I would go unnoticed in such a large structure.

For the most part the people passing over the clock were sparse, until a train came and you would have a bust of people passing by, giving me a window of about 1-2 minutes to catch something interesting. I didn't have a wide angle lens at the time, so I framed my image as best I could to incorporate the clock and the people. I found a framing that I liked and took out my shutter remote. It was a manual one that, someone had given me; to use it I had to plug it into the side on my camera and be extra careful not to accidently tug on the connected cord and mistakenly shake my camera in the process after I had hit the trigger. Since I was going to be using a long shutter speed any movement to the camera would have made the background blurry and I wanted only to capture the movement of the people passing over time.

The first few frames were spent experimenting, to find the right amount of blur that I wanted as the people ran through my frame. I wanted just enough for the viewer to be able to identify the blurs as people. I settled on a speed of ⅕ seconds  as it offered the perfect balance, to still understand the forms as human shapes. Now I was ready to see when my moment of strike would be. I watched as a few trains came in and saw the results of the people that would run past and decided that I would wait for the end burst as the people started to dissipate, this would give the image more impact and feel more controlled.

The first part of the rush didn't appeal to me because they were people who were super fast walkers or metro sprinters, mostly the people who had youth and impatients on their side and walking just a bit too fast to get the amount of blur I had set my camera to. The 2nd half were people still rushing but had the burden of luggage slowing them down, the luggage would also give them a different shape. Still, may have been recognizable as luggage but not the story I wanted to capture. The 3rd was my sweet spot, people still wanting to get to their destination, but not in as much of a rush where they cared to be trampled on and bumped into, yet faster still then the end stragglers, who would not be rushed for anything.

After a few practices, I was able to get a good feeling for the ebb and flow of the current of the trains. Since, I was using a slow shutter I would not have many chances to capture my image during each burst, the crowd would fade away as fast as they came.

I ended up staying longer than I had wanted to, but I just didn't have "the" shot yet, there was something missing from the images I had captured and I couldn't really put my finger on what it was, as I was getting ready for the next rush I could see the crowd approaching and I could see something interesting – some one dressed in a beautiful red cape and I perked up and readied myself to hit the shutter. It was just what was missing an interesting burst of color that would stand out amongst the greys and dark blues.

In post I enhanced this impact and made that area slightly lighter by dodging the area around and just in front to keep the view in the scene and traveling to see what other delights might be hiding in this image. I also brought up the vibrancy of the red to further exaggerate the impact, finishing by adding a slight vignette to the edges as I like to do. Keeping the viewer looking and observing as the people literally, figuratively and metaphorically move over time, forever captured in this moment.

Shoot Setting:
ISO: 200
Focal Length: 25mm
Aperture: F/11
Time: 1/5 sec

It's OK to drop the ball sometimes.

This is really hard to admit as an artist, especially if you happen to be part of the few to turn your art into a career. One important factor for a photographer who's made the leap to career is consistent results. People come to you because you know what you are doing. In today’s world, where everyone has a camera, its easy to forget that photography is actually a highly specialized skill. It takes years to learn and to master. Hence, being able to deliver consistent results and the confidence the clients put in your ability is the foundation of any photographic career. People seek out your services because you have time tested and proven results.

Talk about pressure. With so much riding on you reputation, it can be unbelievably stressful, especially since it’s well-known that artists are emotional time bombs and are probably their own worst critics. Still, we are only human and as humans sometimes we mess up and we make mistakes.

I recently did a photoshoot for a woman and the night before our shoot,  she invited me over to a dinner party she was having. I had a great time and had way too much to drink. The next day,  the day of her shoot, I was off my game, I felt like my mind was working 2 minutes slower than normal and that led me to become stressed and  panicked. The shoot was supposed to be quick, just one hour, but to me the time felt like it was on fast forward.

I came home with images that I already knew where not my best work. Not to say that they were horrible, they most certainly were passable, but passable was not what I want, ever.

The whole situation made me sick to my stomach, I tried editing them to see if I could make them better with post production. That failed, in fact I think it made them worse. Then I tried doing the worst thing ever; I tried ignoring them. But the images became my very own Telltale Heart. Every time I opened Lightroom I felt a bit anxious, I knew my failed shoot was there, and I would see them in my "needs editing" category, haunting me.

The longer they were there the worst it became, mostly because I knew what I had to do from the start. I had to face the music, I had to call my client and ask if we could do a reshoot. I had to tell her that it wasn't because of her, but it was because of me. That I had created images that I wasn't happy with and that I couldn't, in good conscience,  release.

Not only that, I had to face my own failure, I had to admit that I wasn't perfect. Not that perfection is something I've ever tried to attain to, but I hold my work to the utmost standards and I had to admit that my work, the work that I love so dearly, that I had sacrificed so much for over the years, was not good.

Now, I have to admit in hindsight, this was a serious overkill of the situation. One bad shoot does not make me a bad photographer. In fact, in the end, it might have made me a better one. In a way I felt like a huge weight had been lifted off of my shoulders. Facing that fear of never letting myself down, of always having things be perfect, that is a heavy weight to carry. I messed up, and it was OK. The world, didn't end, the four horsemen of the apocalypse didn't burn my house down, my business didn't collapse and my career as a photographer and an artist wasn't over.

The truth had indeed set me free. More than that it forced me to push myself to the next level. Knowing that the worst had come and passed left me feeling free to let it go and push on to bigger and better heights.

During the reshoot, I brought my A++++ game, I was going to make sure that I got the shots I should have gotten the first time.

And, I did. 

If you've never spent time in Paris during the summer you are really missing out on some incredibly rich events. It seems like every week there is something happening and it all starts in June when France starts their Summer Solstice with an event known as the Fete de la Musique, the streets are filled with musicians at every cafe, on every corner, the streets filled with music, wine and laughter from dusk to dawn.

In the summer you'll find the Paris Plage, which brings the beach to the River Seine, late night open air movies at the Park de Villette, where you can bring a picnic and watch a classic movie under the stars with new friends, and then, there's tango on the Seine.

A nightly event from June to August that happens along the quai of the lesser known Jardin Tino Rossi, where the banks of the river are filled with people of all skill levels twirling about to the sound of latin music.

The nightly event takes place near the Institut de la monde Arabe, in a spot that’s off the beaten tourist track. The area is nice and peaceful, and rarely a tourist in sight, this is an area reserved for the people who live here.

Before I ever visited, I assumed that the event would be sparse, with one or two dance teachers around helping people with some basic step combos and trying to get students to use their hips more. In my mind it was more of an outdoor dance studio than anything else, and there would be a DJ who kept the music blasting as loud as the surrounding neighbors would allow. In reality the event was nothing like I had imagined.

The quai was filled with people dancing all around and at first glance I couldn't fathom how the participants found enough room to dance without constantly bumping into another flaring couple or falling into the river.

I hoped i would be able to get up close and capture spinning dresses, hair tosses and flying feet but I quickly realized that would not be the case. There was no room without assuming that either I or my camera would be damaged.

I entered the dance party from the river side, behind the chaotic scene I could see a line of bystanders looking down at the dancers. I knew I needed to get to higher ground and change my vantage point if I wanted any good images. To get there it meant I would have to go into the heart of it all.

I watched from where I was for a while to see if I could predict any patterns with the group, were there going to be breaks when the dancing would stop or people quitting and leaving the crowd, I was trying to see if I  could devise a strategy to make it to the other side in one piece.

I soon realized that I would just have to duck and dodge my way to the other side. As I worked my way through, I made a mental note to check event photography and photojournalism off my list of possible photographic career paths.

Safely on the other side, or at least safely enough on the other side, I could see that the people I had seen watching were actually dancers waiting for a space to open so they could jump into the mob and join in.

Although I was now on higher ground I still wasn't able to get a good vantage point as I was now stuck behind the dancers eager to get in. I tried bobbing my head up and down and even trying to find small cracks between the people, then I tried holding my camera up in the air above the people in front of me me and was very happy that I had bought a new camera with a tilt screen, even still, my strategy wasn't working.

I needed to get higher still. So I looked around again, and saw that there was a flower bed with a stone ledge behind us that would surely give me enough of a vantage point to start crafting an image.

I left the eager dancers and made my way to the flower bed, a bit too tall for a giant step up, but short enough where I could climb up with little embarrassment. Finally I had an upper hand and could see everything that was happening. I moved to the end of the ledge, anticipating a few copy cats   who would also want a better look and took out my tripod. I set up my gear just incase I would need it and brought my focus back to the scene.

I could now see everything that was happening in this ecosphere. There were good dancers and bad, popular dancers who everyone seemed to want to dance with next, couples bumping into other couples, hair hitting people in the face, people who looked lost and uncomfortable, and people who looked completely taken in the movement and possessed by the music. I brought my camera to my eye, slowed down the shutter speed and continued watching.

As everything was happening so quickly I knew I would have to be in place to catch anything that caught my eye. I was using my 70-300mm lense and tried tight and wide shoots. I followed couples to see if I could get the flare of a dress that I had pictured and captured a few images of people who were lost in their own world.

Then I caught sight of this one woman in the crowd, she didn't look like she wanted to be there, uncomfortable, intimidated and not knowing where to go or what to do with herself. Where she was, was not a place for on-lookers or bystanders, she was lost, trapped in the middle of it all. She finally stopped and just stood still, not knowing what else to do. And I was able to capture this image with her perfectly still amidst the chaos and noise all around her giving the feeling as if she had the ability to see past it all.

This is one of the few color images in my collections and I kept it in color because it added to the vibrancy of the moment. I cropped it in a near panorama ratio, taking out the river in front and gave it a deep shadowing vignette to make the image feel never ending, everything just fades away to black as she looks off into the distance, past the noise and into the quite.

Shoot Settings:
ISO: 1600
Focal Length: 110mm
Aperture: F/6.3
Time: 1/0.8 sec

One of the challenges I’m facing with scheduling and organizing photoshoots is  making sure the models come prepared. For woman that’s not a big deal, they show up with everything you asked for, plus everything they’ve ever owned since they were nine; a photographers dream!

Men on the other hand do not work that way and I have to admit that I am always worried when a man shows up on set for a shoot to see what they have brought with tme. If you’ve ever had to share a space with a man, you’d know that their side of the closet is almost laughable. While the minimalist wardrobe works in the everyday world, in photography the accessories can really make the difference between a well balanced, intriguing, and polished final image to none of the above.

So when I’m photographing with a male subject, I make sure I lay it all out; clear, specific and direct. Men shooting with me need to come with a belt, modern cut suit, polished shoes, suspenders, cuff links, tie, pocket scarf, a watch and manicured nails. Yes, manicured nails!

Those are just a few of the things I tell men when I have to plan a shoot with them.

Most of the time it requires them doing some shopping before hand and a follow up email asking where exactly they can go to get a manicure.

But when I laid out the details for Fabrice, he immediately replied, that he had most of what was required.

YES!

I truly believe that every man should own a well tailored suit, it is an absolute must. 

A man in a good suit is equivalent to a woman wearing lingerie (an adage you might see floating about in social media right now).

I was so happy; not only did he have what I needed but he was able to bring a TON of options with him and I was really able to play around with the style of his shoot, this made all the difference!

If someone shows up for a shoot with one option that doesn't work, you really need to be a creative genius in photoshop or let them know that you can’t shoot them.

I learned that the hard way on a different shoot. After all, these are going to bare your name and turn into your potential marketing pieces and no one wants to show or have their name associated with sub-par work!

So Fabrice, showed to the shoot with everything we needed to create some visually appealing images.

Not only that, being an actor he was really easy to work with and had great expressions and body movement, it was super easy for me to direct him. He had a great classic look that worked well with the vintage, moody, high contrast images I wanted to make.

To find out more about Fabrice check out his latest web-series and other projects, connect with him on Facebook

When I first moved to France, I lived just outside of Paris' borders in St.Ouen, a small and diverse town, with not much going on. It had its own small tourist attractions, if a tourist ever happened upon it. But it's pretty much known for its flea market the Marché aux Puces, that most people mistakenly think is in Paris, an easy mistake as its as close to the border of Paris as you can get. You'd enter and not even know you'd crossed over into a new town, a world of lost things in limbo. If you are one of the lucky travelers to actually find your way past the street vendors that mob and camouflage the actual Marche aux Puce you'd find a place where time seems to have collided and lost mementos are abandoned.

However, if you think you'll find great bargains and amazing treasures, you'd be disappointed. Everything is overpriced as you'd expect in tourist hot spots. These shop owners know that old isn't worthless.

While walking around you'll find elaborate vintage dresses, statues, dismantled dolls, high fashion hats, broken chandeliers, sunglasses from every decade; everything from the common to the uncommon.

I used to spend a lot of time there walking on weekends with my dog, Mac, the market entrance was about a five minute walk from where I lived.

It was a nice way to spend a lazy Sunday and the market was such a labyrinth, I was sure to find something new every time. I had a few photo experiments on these walks, photographing the people shopping, the shop owners waiting for something to happen, the many dogs freely roaming the grounds. Taking images in this location was challenging as many shop owners don't want photos to be taken of the items. Not even the junk shops that looked to be filled with nothing but dumpster finds.

But I was able to find a few places unguarded with little traffic where I could take a little longer to mentally ponder how the mismatched items in front of me could be photographed; as was the case with this image. Photographically I became intrigued with how the combination of random things looked together and I found myself walking down an alley filled with statues of all kinds; large and small, fantastical and ornamental.

When people ask me about this image they always assume it is a baby, in actuality it is a stature of a cherub, one of those baby like, cupid characters you see often in paintings of Greek and Roman mythology.

In front of it was an old door leaning against another object. The door had  6 glass panels that had an almost geometric pattern to it, a lot of crinkles and sharp edges, giving the glass the same effect you see sometimes when you look through glass in the rain.

I really liked this effect and started playing around with the combination of the two, using manual focus I tried two options one with the statue in focus, the other with the glass and ended up finding a happy medium between the two making the statue hard to identify.

It felt very voyeuristic and intruding, and I liked it. As if I was creeping into someone's personal life and selfishly taking a moment. It reminded me of a quote from Helmut Newton "Any photographer who says he's not a voyeur is either stupid of a liar." I thought it to be one of these quotes that makes you, as an artist, face a hidden aspect of yourself and I started questioning this idea of being a voyeur and what that would look like if I embraced this moral faux pas.

At least, face it im my own way, without risking arrest. While I was there I really started having these thoughts of boundaries and intrusion and in some ways even what would be violating peoples mini stories as they unfold throughout the day. My thoughts went dark, and I wanted to feel intrusive and obnoxious and morally wrong. I wanted to feel what that would be like, would I feel empowered, sick, evil? What would incorporating those concepts look like in my work? Would the creation of art justify the violations of human privacy I was considering? Was there a greater story to be told about our inner lives? and  would I end-up capturing it?...

Perhaps.

Yes, as a photographer I had taken many images without the consent or knowledge of those photographed and created compelling stories from moments that for them where insignificant daily rituals and intruding on their silent inner dialogue.

This was the essence of the body of work I had, even though the participants weren't identifiable I had taken their moment in time and created a body of work from it.

It was interesting acknowledging that I had been and would continue to be a voyeur in my art and I would accept it, embrace it and be grateful for the many nameless people that would contribute to it.

How I shot it series is a detailed description of my images, where I was, why I shot it, how I saw it and the settings I used.

When I am walking around the streets with my camera I rarely worry about my camera settings. I do a general adjustment and mostly just focus on the time speed as I capture images because I really like a bit of blur and movement. I really like the creative part of photography, I don't care much about gear or the technical aspect of photography. Not to say it isn't important, it's just not what drives me. I care more about connecting to the moment and seeing interactions play out. I can often see a scene and know that with a little patience everything in that moment will play out like a beautifully choreographed dance to reveal a perfectly fleeting moment in time. And my job is to wait, camera in hand ready to capture and preserve its beauty forever. 

The first image is one that I took in Paris, France along the banks of the Seine River. It was a warm summer day, and I had my camera on hand as usual. I was early for a meeting and decided to kill some time exploring. It was a lively afternoon and I was in the heart of the tourist center just behind the Notre Dame on the bridge of Ile St. Louis. The street was busy with people eating the famous Berthillon ice cream found in that particular area.

People were leisurely walking enjoying the Paris backdrop, small crowds gathered as they enjoyed various street performances and the banks were lined with people lazily lingering along the quai. I walked through the unfolding event, carefully observing all of the people as I tend to do with street photography.

I didn't really see anything that caught my eye or very interesting until I got to the end on the bridge where I decided to stop and look out onto the water and see if anything of interest was happening there.

In a small nook where the quai merged with the river there was a small group, two women talking and a child that had taken interest with a flock of pigeons sun bathing all along the short path, just far enough away so that the ebb and flow of the river wouldn't disturb them.

The adults were paying her no mind but her fascination intrigued me. So I continued to watch as she sheepishly approached the flock and I knew that something was about to emerge in front of me. I didn't exactly know what was going to happen but I knew it was going to lead to a wonderful cloud of birds flying away. So I lifted my camera to my eye, braced my elbows on the ledge in front of me and slowed down my shutter speed to capture the sudden burst of movement and I waited.

I took a few images of her timid attempts at making the pigeons fly away and nothing. One, maybe two took notice of her and left; as they did she would run back and hug the wall behind her.

I waited for maybe 10 minutes watching patiently through my lense and she slowly built up enough courage to reach her final goal.

But then the child did something I did not expect, she took her scarf, draped it over her head and shoulders and ran into the flock of pigeons. And as I expected, an incredible moment unfolded; though not the one I originally anticipated.

The girl with her makeshift covering suddenly stopped in mid-attack; her scarf took on a bird-like shape and the birds all flew away in annoyance from the troublesome child that had ruined their peaceful afternoon sunbathing. As it all came together I captured the image below and I instantly knew that I had captured the image I felt was waiting for me in that moment.

Whenever I get an image like this one I tend to feel very grateful to the universe for allowing me to be there at that perfect moment, and it reminds me of one of my favorite quotes “Luck, is when preparation and opportunity meet”

When I got home and uploaded my images I started editing in Lightroom, I turned it black and white, high contrast, with a soft deep vignette to pull the viewer into the scene and closer to the moment.

Shoot Setting:
ISO; 160
Focal Length: 76mm
Aperture: F/20
Time: 1/25 sec

So what do you think of this image?

I got the chance to visit the world famous Studio Harcourt in Paris, France, a place that I've been wanting to visit ever since I moved to Paris 5 years ago. Although they do have tours the studio is  still very hard to get into for a visit. So when the opportunity arose I jumped at the chance to peek behind the elusive Harcourt veil. 

The studio was started in the 1930's and was famous for is signature black and white photograph and its continuous lighting technique inspired from cinematographic lighting styles. They had an exclusive contract with MGM studios and photographed the who's who in film and after 75 years, it still known for it's elite clientele. My work is heavily inspired timeless and classic black and white photography so it was a real treat going behind the scenes and seeing the mastery that is Studio Harcourt in action. 


The first slide show is a look at the make up and dressing room. Designed to look like a scene from Beauty and the Beast with the light fixtures being hands coming from the wall. 

The next series is a demonstration of how they build the lights for a photo shoot. Lights range from 8 to 12 depending on the subject. They always start with all the lights out and build up from there. 

And the final result after all the lights have been placed, you're left with the beautiful, elegant and timeless signature lighting of the famous Studio Harcourt. 

If you are ever in Paris, and would like to have a session with the studio, you should budget 2000 euros for a 3 hour session and go home with one photo that you will have forever. 

What do you get when you mix a vintage police uniform, a dancer and high heals?

You get the genius that is Brian Scott Bagely, Paris burlesque dancer extrodinare and a dear friend.  

After doing a show for Louis Vuitton, he was left with a costume he just had to put good use. So he called together a last minute dream team. 

A leading lady, a videographer, a photographer (that's me) and a few other people to help on the set of his upcoming music video. 

My job to was to get some behind the scenes shots, some video stills and mini photo shoot between filming. 

We had so much fun on set, mostly from the crowd that gathered as we were shooting who all had the same reaction of seeing a dancing, sining police officer in heals!