Paris is easily my favourite city ever and I try to visit at least a few times a year. I've visited the city so much that I rarely take many shots or visit the obvious tourist attractions. However on a trip to Paris in early 2016 I wanted to set myself a challenge to only bring 1 lens and only use that for the duration of the trip. In doing so I made an effort to visit a few tourist attractions and places I hadn't been to in years to try to shoot it from a different perspective.
Around that I time had recently purchased the much hyped Sigma Art 50mm lens so it seemed like the perfect choice to bring. Worth mentioning I shot all these on my Nikon D810. They've had very little editing, just a bit of colour toning in Capture One.
Disclaimer:
Ok well 2 disclaimers, the first is this blog entry contains a gratuitous (you could almost say unnecessary) amount of shallow depth of field. I dont often shoot wide open but given which lens I was using I wanted to check out the much raved about bokeh!!
Second disclaimer, on a more serious note. This trip to Paris was in early 2016 and was just a short time after the terrorist attack at the Bataclan venue. I often pass through that part of Paris and curiosity got the better of me to stop by the venue while I was nearby. It really was a disturbing sight seeing the scene so fresh after what happened but at the same time I wanted to document it through my own eyes. I really was unsure if I'd ever post those shots but I was very cautious not to shoot anything that may be considered disrespectful. As you can imagine the area was full of mourners and a lot of very distraught people. I know you often see shots of these type of scenes from war zones and crime scenes. I'm not a photojournalist though and had no business photographing those people. I kept my shots to images of the venue, the alley beside it (you may have seen some video footage from that night taken in that alleyway), and some of the beautiful tributes left in front of the venue. The point of this long disclaimer is to say, if you are of a sensitive disposition maybe don't look any further. It was the scene of a horrific incident and I wouldn't want anyone to have to see it who didn't want to.
Now thats been mentioned, on with the shots.
