Tag Archive for: street photography

Interview by The Creative Cats

I’ve had the great pleasure of being interviewed by The Creative Cats, a collective of creative people from Instagram.

Read below for PART 1 of 3 of @thecreativecats interview with @pierrepichotphoto , a french photographer living in Romania. ☺ . Describing his photography as “graphic pieces of life”, Pierre Pichot, 31, started his journey through photography 3 years ago. 📷 . Like a lot of people, Pierre got his first DSLR because he thought it would help him take great photos. “However, I also tried to understand the basics of photography, not relying on Auto mode,” he said. 👓 . “Then during my vacation we drove through the magnificent Transfagarasan (Top Gear fans will know) and I took a few shots that were, let’s say, not that bad,” he explained. 👌 . After posting them online and receiving positive feedback, he delved deeper into the technicalities of photography: both on site techniques and post processing techniques.👀 . He began shooting brilliant street photography to show the world from a different perspective. “Street photography came a bit later on, when I discovered it’s more than just shooting people in the streets,” he stated. 👱💃 . “I like to keep the realism of the action, but put it in a much more graphic context,” he added. 👤 . With a love for dark ambiances, he creates imagery mainly in black. “I like those dark ambiances,  which is why my daylight photography is also quite dark,” he explained.❤ . . . . #streetphotography #photography #photographer #photographyislife #photo #instagood #life #bnw #blackandwhite #black #creative #thecreativecats #romania #france

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Part 2:

Read below for PART 2 of 3 of @thecreativecats interview with the amazing @pierrepichotphoto 📷 . Pierre found his affinity with monochromatic imagery and turned it into his personal signature. “It’s just how I see things. When I look at a scene, I see the content, the lines, the light, the contrast between the elements, and I see them in black and white. I’m just not attracted to colours,” he explained. 🎩 . Hoping to cultivate work that can be recognised, he strives to perfect capturing images in black and white. “I think it’s awesome when you can recognise one’s work even without knowing the piece of art before,” he said.🎨 . “It can be a photo, a movie, a song… That’s what I’m trying to do, have a style that I can, hopefully, one day, be recognised for,” he added. ⛺ . Aside from dark imagery, Pierre loves symmetry. “This is my eye candy. I love it when the background or the subject (or even better, both!) offer me symmetry,” he said. .○● “It really adds something to the graphical side I want to give to my photos,” he explained,  adding that it’s even better when this symmetry gives him strong leading lines. |||| . “Very often, the background is my subject, turning the people into a form of decoration and bringing the scene to life,” he explained. 🙌 . To create his images, he uses 2 cameras: a Canon 6D and a Fujifilm X100T. “I’ve been using the latter for a few months and it has been a game changer for me. It takes really great photos in a small form factor,” he said. 📷 . “So, it’s always in my pocket, I can shoot anywhere, anytime,” he added.🌎 . . . . #instagood #photography #photographer #photographyislife #photo #photooftheday #beautiful #bnw #blackandwhite #black #white #grayscale #creative #thecreativecats #romania #france

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Part 3:

Read below for Part 3 of 3 of our interview with @pierrepichotphoto 📷 . On the lines of inspiration, Pierre finds that Instagram can be a great source of inspiration. “On the photography side, it goes from Cartier-Bresson to McCurry, from Vivian Maier to Boogie, to name the most famous photographers,”he said. . “Currently I’m also enjoying this wave of Japanese street photographers like Tatsuo Suzuki and Tadashi Onishi. As previously said, Tsutomo Nihei, as well as Frank Miller, are inspirations for me, on a more graphical side,”he added. . Pierre plans to continue travelling, with Prague being his next destination. “I’ve been lucky to spend a few incredible weeks in Japan in 2015, it really helped to raise my photography skills and my portfolio,” he said. . “Secondly, I’ve done a few teaching materials for an association here in Romania, I’m planning to expand it and propose it on my website www.pierrepichot.com ,”he concluded. #thecreativecats #photography #picoftheday #photo #blackandwhite #bnw #black #white #beautiful #instagood #france #europe

A photo posted by The Creative Cats (@thecreativecats) on

Thanks again the Cats!

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Long legs in Prague

Long legs. Prague, Czech Republic, 2016.
Prague has been a long time travel destination. It has this beautiful architecture, those small streets, and all those tourists that make it perfect for street photography.

This photo was taken next to Prague’s castle, in the Little Quarter (Malá Strana for those who speak Jan Saudek‘s language). Just after going down the exit of the castle on the right, there is this street, with an incredible view of the whole city. But at the end of this street, there is these long stairs, leading to restaurants and bars hidden in nice old houses. But when you’re lucky enough to have the sun just in line with these stairs, it’s a festival of incredible shadows.

I had to wait quite a lot to get this photo. There are a lots of tourists, everywhere. It’s a real challenge to get a clean shot there! And don’t even get me started about the Charles Bridge! I wanted someone alone, just one single person going down these stairs, but it was too much to ask I think. I still managed to shoot this woman, with the longest legs in the world… according to her shadow at least! I also love the way the sun shines through her hair, like a bowl of fire above her neck. It’s definitely one of my best shots of this trip!

I also have a few more photos from Prague, I think I make some new entries in my portfolio in the next weeks. And a few other trips in the most iconic places in France are also planned for this summer, so stay tuned!

Do you like this photo? Contact me for obtaining an original, signed print!

EXIFs:

  • Camera: Canon 6D
  • Lens: Canon EF24-70mm f/2.8L II USM
  • Aperture: ƒ/7.1
  • Focale: 70mm
  • Shutter speed: 1/60s
  • ISO: 100
  • Copyright: Pierre Pichot 2016, all rights reserved
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Airport stairs

Airport stairs. Munich Airport, Germany, 2016.

The Munich airport (and airports in general actually) may be my favourite playground for photography. It has pretty much all I love: slick and modern design with large windows, stairs, rushing people, calm crowd. They scream for a dynamic environment that is perfect for my kind of photography. Being a fan of geometry, strong lines and diagonals, I can find there all the graphical elements I need for street photography, Pierre Pichot style 🙂

I took advantage of a trip from Cluj-Napoca (Romania) to Frankfurt (Germany) via Munich (still Germany) to take a few shots. It was not the best possible scenario: on both go and back trip my first flight was delayed, making me rush between the arrival and boarding gates. So impossible for me to take my time and plan my photos. It was pure reflex shooting, in an instant. The photo above was shot while waiting for very long mechanical stairs to reach the last floor of the building. It was already late at night, the airport was pretty empty and I thought I’ll never be able to fit someone in my frame. At the very last second a group of passengers finally appeared, making my photo complete.

I once again decided to use the dutch angle, first of all because I really like it, but more importantly because it accentuate quite a lot the dynamic of the photos, multiplying the diagonals across the frame. The architectural complexity of this airport becomes much more obvious this way. It always reminds me those crazy science fiction movies and comics. Tsutomu Nihei’s manga Blame!, in this very case.

Do you like this photo? Contact me for obtaining an original, signed print!

EXIFs:

  • Camera:Fujifilm X100T
  • Aperture: ƒ/8.0
  • Focale: 23mm
  • Shutter speed: 1/125s
  • ISO: 6400
  • Copyright: Pierre Pichot 2016, all rights reserved
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Another direction

The other direction. Cluj-Napoca, Romania.

A few weeks ago I was attending a university graduation ceremony of one of the members of my family. I wasn’t really in a artistic mode to be honest, much more in another direction like  “take portraits with the telephoto as you came late and can’t get closer than 20 meters from the scene” mode. Not my favourite kind of photography, but being the only one in the family with correct photography skills, I was the one that got declared volunteer for this task. I think that it will ring a bell for all the photographers reading this blog post.

Once my relative got his diploma, it got really boring as there were still a LOT of kids that were to receive their precious paper. It gave me time to wander a bit and I found this grey haired man, in this theatre-like place. It was a pretty interesting figure: he was the only one with light coloured hairs, and he was reflecting the lights from the scene like none of the other people in the place. The time for me to move the camera to him, he looked at the other side (the scene is a bit more on the right hand side), and in this other direction he showed me a part of his face. Click, the shutter is released, at least I have my shot of the day 🙂

The processing was fairly straightforward using Adobe Lightroom to turn the photo in black and white and give a lower key feeling. Then, some tiny touches of dodge & burn to raise the overall contrast.

Do you like this photo? Contact me for printing fees!

EXIFs:

  • Camera: Canon 6D
  • Lens: Canon EF70-200mm f/2.8L IS II USM
  • Aperture: ƒ/2.8
  • Focale: 150mm
  • Shutter speed: 1/160s
  • ISO: 1600
  • Copyright: Pierre Pichot 2016, all rights reserved
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Dutch angle

Dutch angle. Cluj-Napoca, Romania.

I called this photo “Dutch angle” as a reference to the famous camera tilt technique of “[setting the camera] at an angle on its roll axis so that the shot is composed with vertical lines at an angle to the side of the frame, or so that the horizon line of the shot is not parallel with the bottom of the camera frame”. This is typically the kind of composition I enjoy. I love to play with lines and stripes and tilting the camera in a way that the cross walk stripes are now going diagonal make this photo so dynamic! This combination of now diagonal lines, in two directions, makes a perfect graphical background for street photography.

I shot this dutch angle photo during a street photography workshop part of the Photo Romania Festival 2016 in Cluj-Napoca. It’s was the very first shot of the day, taken just before another picture that I’ve already blogged about. We were in a zone were road works has just been finished and those freshly painted stripes were just… tempting me, inviting me to do something graphical with them. How to refuse this invite? I’m happy this girl with her flowery coat just stepped in the frame, waiting for the green light to pop in. She was a perfect subject for this photo. The only challenge were the cars passing just in front of us, finding the exact timing was not easy but in the end, we did it!

The processing was fairly straightforward using Adobe Lightroom to turn the photo in black and white with Fujifilm‘s camera profiles. I just needed to raise the contrast between the asphalt and the white painted stripes, and voila!

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: 1/500s
  • ISO: 320
  • Copyright: Pierre Pichot 2016, all rights reserved
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Tag Archive for: street photography