"No man is rich enough to buy back his past", once said a clever man. I must confess that I often contemplate my previous choices, even though I cannot change them. Imagining "what could have happened if..." is a favorite game of my mind. While some may say that spending time looking behind is useless, I believe that analyzing my past behavior in such or such situation helps me handling things better in the present. This is not really nostalgia, but rather the need to learn as much as possible from each experience. I suppose many persons tend to think a lot about their own path, do you?
In any case, it is also wise to not forget that there is a mandatory departure waiting for each of use, and enjoy each moment of that travel as much as possible. After all, life is a one way ticket to death.
Some technical notes about the image:
- The stairs are absolutely real, they are located in the Montmartre hill, in the north of Paris. The famous Basilica of the Sacré Coeur is also here. To get the clearest possible shot of the place, I went there in the middle of the night, around 4am. Most tourists were sleeping, and I spent about 2 hours in those stairs shooting them from various angles.
- In that season, one can't see the road going that far towards the horizon, due to trees. So I spent some time in post-processing cloning out vegetation and houses on the sides, to isolate the path in an empty place. I also made it a bit longer: I love the Eiffel tower shape it gave to it, very Parisian don't you think?
- Back at home, I used my staircase to shoot my portrait as realistically as possible. I carefully put my camera on its tripod in the very same position that is was in Montmartre, and positioned strobes as needed: one at the top right of my stairs, to simulate the closest lamp, and one at the bottom left of them to reproduce the light from the lamps further away. It worked very well, and next to nothing was adjusted for the composite (except of course the usual levels and white balance adjustments).
Thanks for watching and for the kind feedback, much appreciated!
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I do love your details. I'm curious if the stairs are real, why not bring the equipment and shoot at the site?
(This really is wonderful, by the way!)
Thank you Wendy!
There are several reasons;
- I wanted a large DoF, so I had to either bump the ISO up, or do a long exposure. I chose the latter, since I am not fond of sensor noise. Moreover, it would be hard to stay there without moving an eye for 30 seconds or so.
- I was alone on the spot, 4am, 200m away from the main "adult" area of Paris. Bringing there large strobes, batteries, outfits, and using a remote was definitely not a good idea. It would probably require several assistants to perform that in good conditions.
- I usually don't know what will be the "best" angle until I review all my shots on the computer. I shot around 50 different points of view, and posing for each one would have been quite a hassle. Not mentioning it took me around 3 hours: then I had to leave, the sun was starting to appear, changing the overall lighting.
- Last but not least, at home, I can take as many self portraits as I need until I am happy with the expression.
Superb Christophe, looking forward to seeing all those fancy lamp posts in Europe soon. Your clothing is spot on, the falling leaves and great leading lines all the way to the air balloon, fun image and great overall mood to this. 10
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