On day 2 of the Paris workshop, we started at Place Marguerite de Navarre with the entrance of the Châtelet Les Halles train station. While the design of this station is amazing, I find it somewhat difficult to photograph. For this shot, I turned to the curvy details of the ceiling.
A short walk away we spent about an hour at the controversial Renzo Piano and Richard Rogers designed Centre Pompidou. The building, completed in 1977, wasn’t exactly the most beloved building at the time. The design showcases its inner workings on the facade with each color representing a function – air conditioning, electricity, water, transport of people. Inside there’s a museum and a restaurant. Given its chaos, it’s not the easiest place to photograph. I think the back side is the most interesting and the best way to approach it is by isolation various portions of the facade.
The tube-like area housing the escalators feels a bit like a caterpillar to me.
Once at the top you can get some pretty nice views of the city.
After lunch, we headed to the iconic Louvre. From the exterior, I prefer concentrating on playing with the old/new juxtaposition.
Just inside, under the largest pyramid designed by I.M. Pei, we spent some time photographing this fantastic staircase, ceiling detail and the pyramid from the inside out. I preferred the soft tones of the metal and stone for this series of shots.
We were all loving the big swooping curves of that staircase against the pyramids grid.
Just through a corridor is the Carrousel du Louvre, which is basically an underground shopping mall. What makes this area interesting is La Pyramide Inversée. Lots of great ways to photograph this. As you can see, symmetry was the main compositional tool I focused on in creating shots of this space.
Another short walk from here and we were at Le Palais Royal. It was packed with students when we first arrived so I had to wait things out a bit before quickly grabbing this shot. What makes this area most interesting is the older architecture that surrounds these black and white columns in its plaza. Definitely lots of kids climbing those!
Our final stop before dinner was the beautiful Palais Garnier, originally the city’s Opera House it’s now mostly used for the ballet since Place de la Bastille opened. Here’s a lookup shot of the beautiful ceiling in the main entrance.
After dinner, our sunset/blue hour location included Eiffel Tower views from Pont de Bir-Hakeim.
Stay tuned for the remaining 2 days. Here’s the recap from day 1 in case you missed it. And everything, from the workshop here. And soon, the 2019 Paris workshop will be open for registration!
