Tag Archive for: fujifilm

Strangers in the Dark IX

Strangers in the Dark IX. Cluj-Napoca, Romania, 2016.

Strangers in the Dark IX. Cluj-Napoca, Romania, 2016. Get a print!

Winter has come, the night are starting earlier… and the snow started falling. A perfect setup for moody photos! We’re back in Cluj-Napoca, Romania, in the old city center which used to be part of a citadelle, a long time ago. Old city center means small, narrow streets with old houses. Narrow streets mean great lighting when the night comes. And that is exactly what happened here!

I caught these two women in a passionate discussion in the cold. The snow started to fall pretty hard, they didn’t care about it, absorbed in their stories. They left me all the time in the world to frame this shot the way I wanted it. Thanks girls! I really like those high contrast scenes. It’s pretty much the way it was in real life. The whole street, not being very long, is illuminated by only one light at its middle. The end of the street then disappears in the dark. Who knows what may happen over there?

I was told this photo has a Brassaï “je ne sais quoi”… The comparison is quite amazing to me! Maybe because he was born in Romania, in the same Transylvania this photo was taken 😉 I hope he would have liked this photo.

Strangers in the Dark IX is part of my “Strangers in the Dark” project. It’s a set of quite graphic and contrasty photos of strangers in poorly illuminated streets, at night, giving a dark and sometimes gloomy mood. Come and give a look to the whole project by clicking this link.

Do you like this photo? Why not getting an original, signed fine art print in limited edition?

EXIFs:

  • Camera:Fujifilm X100T
  • Aperture: ƒ/2.8
  • Focale: 23mm
  • Shutter speed: 1/60s
  • ISO: 6400
  • Copyright: Pierre Pichot 2016, all rights reserved
/0 Comments/by

Night call

Night call. Cluj-Napoca, Romania, 2016.

Night call. Cluj-Napoca, Romania, 2016. Get a print!

Wandering in the streets at might, I passed by a building I like. It’s a choreography and dramatic art boarding school which is painted in a bright blue, perfect for a vivid and colorful photo. It also has an interesting entrance, looking like a former factory, with square patterned windows. While the blue color of the wall is great during the day, this entrance comes alive at night!

Luckily for me, this time there was someone in the entrance. Being a dance oriented boarding school, a lot of teenagers stay there, waiting for the end to come to call their family, their lover… Who knows! But there was definitely some emotion in the way she behave there… It’s a photo I really like, the light was just fantastic. The square shaped window give this graphic feeling that I love in street photography. Definitely a nice photo to hand on a wall!

This photo has had quite a lot of success of social medias, I hope you’ll like it too!

Do you like this photo? Click here and get an original, signed print in limited edition!

EXIFs:

  • Camera:Fujifilm X100T
  • Aperture: ƒ/5.6
  • Focale: 23mm
  • Shutter speed: 1/60s
  • ISO: 6400
  • Copyright: Pierre Pichot 2016, all rights reserved
/0 Comments/by

Run!

Run! Bucharest, Romania, 2016.

Run! Bucharest, Romania, 2016. Get a print!

I took this photo in Bucharest in October 2016. I met there a local group of street photographers, and we decided to go for a photowalk at night. We went by Piata Unirii (Union Square), known for its large shops with loads of lights. A perfect place to play at night! There, we found this renewed underground exit, that became our main shooting spot for the evening. Reflective marble, bright lights, strong contrast with the night, what to ask more?

I know what to ask more! An interesting subject, to fill these stairs! For this poor man in hurry, it was not just a matter of fighting these stairs between him and the outside, he also had to go through a herd of crazy photographers 🙂

Anyway, it was a fun night, and I hope I’ll be back soon to meet again with this awesome group!

Do you like this photo? Click here and get an original, signed print in limited edition!

EXIFs:

  • Camera:Fujifilm X100T
  • Aperture: ƒ/5.6
  • Focale: 23mm
  • Shutter speed: 1/125s
  • ISO: 6400
  • Copyright: Pierre Pichot 2016, all rights reserved
/1 Comment/by

Surprise!

Surprise! Cluj-Napoca, Romania, 2016.

Surprise! Cluj-Napoca, Romania, 2016. Get a print.

The only perk of having the days shorter and shorter while winter is coming (yeah, mandatory reference here…), is that shops get illuminated much sooner, while they’re still open. This way, we get rid of the over-reflection in the outside, but also the lightning becomes more and more interesting, from the inside.

I think I’ve scared this poor woman to death on that day. The surprise on her face is quite self-explaining! I was having a hard time to frame her correctly in the natural border offered by the model’s arm as she was eating and moving. It took longer that I wished, and because of that she noticed me, stop moving, and looked at me with this “what the f*** is he doing” look that is absolutely awesome. The framing and the timing were just perfect, the shot was done, I smiled, she got back to her sandwich. It may not be the best photograph I’ve ever taken technically speaking, but it’s once again the proof that the content and the correct composition make everything. Beside her expression, I just love how the model seems to have its head in its hand!

I’ve seen her again a few days later. The shop she works in is close to where I work. She definitely recognised me, but unfortunately I didn’t have the photo with me at that time. For sure, the next time we meet, I’ll show her this photo, and maybe give her a small print. It’s a photo that has been having a lot of success on several groups and forums (over 2000 likes on Facebook!), it’s the least I can do, right? It may be a good… surprise, for her 🙂

Edit: Surprise! has won 2nd place at the 2017 National Awards of the Sony World Photography Awards!

Get a print!

Do you like this photo? Click here and get an original, signed print in limited edition!

More about this photo

For me, it’s important to share as much info as possible about the photos I take. Therefore, here are the EXIFs for this photo:

  • Camera:Fujifilm X100T
  • Aperture: ƒ/2.8
  • Focale: 23mm
  • Shutter speed: 1/125s
  • ISO: 1250
  • Copyright: Pierre Pichot 2016, all rights reserved
/3 Comments/by

Electric stairs

Electric stairs. Bucharest, Romania, 2016.

Electric stairs. Bucharest, Romania, 2016. Get an original, limited edition signed print.

Continuing my very own “Bucharest Festival of Lines 2016”, in a similar environment. This time I’ve installed myself at the bottom of an underground metro station entrance, and waited for my subject. It was already late in the afternoon, the sun had already started to set for a few tens of minutes. This way, I could capture the difference of light between the dark inside and the shinier outside, but without a too large difference in light quantity. Unlike in a previous photo of mine, Stairway to…, I didn’t want to have a high contrast between the inside and the outside, so I needed to wait for the right time to get the right amount of light. As I’ve already said, preparing and owning the scene are very important!

Next to that, I had 3 goals for this photo. First of all, I wanted to get lines. Recurrent readers know that I love lines 🙂 Look at all those diagonals! It’s a heaven for me, it makes the photo so graphical and so dynamic in the same time. Second, it’s a scene with a lot of textures. There is this stone wall, the battled metal of the electric stairs, the steps, all of them have their own texture that I wanted to be very visible. That is why lightning was important for me, avoiding to have a too strong contrast. Lastly, I wanted to anonymise my subject. People are often only an element of the urban landscape, and she definitively is only an accessory to the real subject here, the stairs. All of that gives a punchy photo that I really like. And I hope you like it too, don’t hesitate to give me your feeling in the comments below!

Do you like this photo? Click here and get an original, signed print in limited edition!

EXIFs:

  • Camera:Fujifilm X100T
  • Aperture: ƒ/5.6
  • Focale: 23mm
  • Shutter speed: 1/250s
  • ISO: 800
  • Copyright: Pierre Pichot 2016, all rights reserved
/0 Comments/by