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

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.

My Image Heavens and Nuns is one that I get questioned about the most when I exhibit it.

People really seem to be intrigued by what is happening in this image and mostly stunned that it was in fact taken in Paris.

This image is from one of the photowalks I used to organize, I wanted to explore the city with other eager photographers so I started a weekly photo walk. It was fun for one summer and some of my best images in my portfolio were taken during those walks.

When I captured this image the walk was focused in the Bercy area of Paris,  it was midday with harsh sunlight, which meant all the shadows would have sharp edges and any white areas could be blown out or lack detail when photographed. The photowalks would meet in an area and just walk wherever inspiration led us. It was a small group and I prefered it that way because it was a small dedicated group and the other members were like me, not very chatty and focused on being in the moment.

On this particular walk we had planned to walk around the Bercy area of Paris, one that I did not know very well, and wanted to go explore. It was very different from what you found in your everyday parisian landscape. The buildings were tall, modern and built around a deck motif. All wooden planked walkways that opened into a big geometric square, full of lines and reflections.

A perfect place to practice strong and creative compositions, a photographer's playground filled with all of the elements one can want for: leading lines, triangles, squares, curves, repetition, shadow and light, movement and stillness, you name it and it was there at your beckon call.

We continued from the Bibliotheque Francois Mitterrand and walked over a curved, wooden bi-level bridge that connected with the near by park. Once you entered, you were at the foot of a water fountain leading down further into the park, on either side were stairs.

We went down the stairs and all silently decided to play with the movement of the water as it came running down the slope of the fountaine. So we unpacked our gear and started playing without tripods, ND filters and shutter remotes.

It was a fun experiment as those things always tend to be, and we stayed for quite awhile as we were playing with long exposures of 10, 20 and 30 second shutter speeds. As I mentioned it was midday and the light was quite strong; I was the first to give up on the water series, I wasn't getting anything that pleased me and began to get bored with it all. As the other two members continued their water trials I started to look else where and explored the near by surroundings.

There were people picnicking on the grass in front of us, teens skateboarding in the far back, groups working out, dogs running for various objects thrown by their human companions; A plethora of things to photograph.

We had been walking in the sun for nearly two hours and I think fatigue was creeping in on all of us and it would soon be time to end this walk. So i never ventured away from the group and into the possibilities in front of me. Not wanting to rush or intrude on the creativity of the group, I just rested and watched as the others tried to create an interesting image.

But I kept my eyes open and looked up at the top of the fountain where I could see people who just entered the park do as we did when we first arrived. Stand on the ledge and survey the area around them. I started taking interest in the comings and goings of these people and picked my camera back up and started documenting the visitors.

As I did three nuns had unexpectedly appeared and spent some time just on the edge of the fountain, I honestly can't tell you why they were there or even how they were sitting from my angle, as there was no public seating situated in that area. I took a few shoots and finally they fell into this pattern, together but separated by their own thoughts.

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.

At the angle I was in I was shooting up into the raging sun, luckily the clouds had paused overhead just in time to give me a little covering and allowing me to get this semi-silhouette effect.

Even though I created this image, it still intrigues me. There’s so much about it I don't know, why were they there, where were they from, what were they thinking, and what were they sitting on?

I like not knowing these answers, it keeps the me and viewer interacting with the image, trying to fill in the blanks of this unfinished story.

Shoot Setting:
ISO; 400
Focal Length: 75mm
Aperture: F/8.0
Time: 1/100 sec

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?