Tag Archive for: x100t

Strangers in the Dark I

Strangers in the Dark I. Cluj Napoca, Romania, 2015.

Strangers in the Dark I. Cluj-Napoca, Romania, 2015.

This photo may be one of the most important pieces in my photography career. It’s the very first shot of my “Strangers in the Dark” project, a still ongoing project that contains a bunch of photos that has been already awarded quite often. I just don’t know why I haven’t posted them before… Well, never mind, they’re coming!

I’ve taken this photo at the Cluj-Napoca train station (Romania), definitely one of the place where I find the most inspiration. There is this brand new underground passage going from the station to the square on the other side of the street. It’s a bit weird, honestly, with only a few lights here and there. This is far from being ideal when you’re passing by by night. Well, that’s bad for the normal people, not for those weird people with cameras who will love this contrasty scene, with very dark and thick shadows!

I say weird people not just for fun. Imagine the scene: it’s late, it’s dark in this underground passage, and a big guys stays there in a corner waiting for people to pass by the light. Sounds a bit like a creep, right? 🙂 Well, a bit, I must admit, but while keeping a nice smile on my face, I think the people were not too freaked out. Most of them had their nose in their smartphone anyhow. That’s also the day where I found out my Fujifilm X100T’s bigger weakness, its battery life, as it was dying very fast while I was trying to get the perfect shot. It was quite a power saving challenge this day!

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

EXIFs:

  • Camera:Fujifilm X100T
  • Aperture: ƒ/2.8
  • Focale: 23mm
  • Shutter speed: 1/60s
  • ISO: 1600
  • 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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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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Little girl

Little girl. Cluj-Napoca, Romania.

I shot the photo of this little girl doing her homework during a workshop organised during the Photo Romania Festival 2016, which takes place in Cluj-Napoca, Romania. This workshop was dedicated to Street Photography with a twist: shooting “from the hip” instead of the classical approach, looking in your viewfinder. “From the hip” actually means shooting in the blind in a different position, with your camera at waist/hip level, or sometimes way above or under the subject.

During the workshop we passed next to a school, with kids playing football, running and screaming… like kids do, right? 🙂 I then saw this little girl, packed in her rain coat, silently drawing on a chair instead of running here and there with her schoolmates. I knew it would be a powerful photo, only if I shoot her from her level, not from the top of my 1,90 meters. The perfect moment for practicing shooting from the hip! I’m very please by how this photo is framed, without even looking in the viewfinder: the little girl is right on the rule of third spot, the chair just fills the left part of the frame, the bench the right side, and I have the other children playing behind. Like any kind of art, photography is about talent, but sometimes you need a little bit of luck, too 😀

The processing was fairly straightforward using Adobe Lightroom to turn the photo in black and white with Fujifilm‘s awesome camera profiles. Then, some tiny touches of dodge & burn to raise the overall contrast and make the girl’s coat pop out of the rest of the frame.

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: 1600
  • Copyright: Pierre Pichot 2016, all rights reserved
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Wheels of Orléans

Big wheel, small wheels. Orléans, Loiret, France.

Big wheel, small wheels. Orléans, France. License it.

Back in my hometown: Orléans, France. It’s a peaceful little city not that far from Paris. The kind you of city where nothing really happens, but it’s still a pleasant place to live in. It gets a bit more active during the winter where the Christmas market opens at Martroi Square, next to Jeanne d’Arc statue. Small shops, fair and big ferris wheel also make their apparition!

Shot with a Fujifilm X100T and processed with Adobe Lightroom using Fuji’s Monochrome profile.

EXIFs:

  • Camera: Fujifilm X100T
  • Aperture: ƒ/11.0
  • Focale: 23mm
  • Shutter speed: 1/500s
  • ISO: 640
  • Copyright: Pierre Pichot 2016, all rights reserved
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