(upbeat music)
- Bonjour!
(mumbles) I want to tell you a little story.
When I started photography 15 years ago,
I was a really horrible photographer.
First of all, it took me a full year to figure out
how to get a sharp photo, you know with the tripod at night.
And when I finally figured it out I remember
I went on a quest.
(Indiana Jones music)
Of shooting Paris by night.
What I did is, is I went up through the sand river,
which is the main river in Paris.
And I started around evening sunset and all the way up to
two o'clock in the morning,
I started taking photos of Paris by night.
Most of the photo was very sharp.
And I was really proud, that was like the first time
I captured the beauty of Paris by night.
So I went home and I started retouching all my photos
and the next morning the agency I was working in
had a very famous photographer so I went to see him
and I said look I'm so happy,
I took photos of Paris by night and I started showing
the photos and I could tell there was something wrong.
Like, he didn't really like them.
And I was like, but what's wrong?
And he looked at me he says well all your skies are black.
There's like no details, nothing.
And he starts showing me photos of rehab which is like
beautiful houses in Marrakech, Morocco.
And they were beautiful blue hour, golden hour sunset.
And I was like yeah but if I had to get a sunset
or blue hour I would have only shot like maybe
two or three photos, I shot 80 photos you know.
And then he looked at me and he said something
that changed my life forever.
He looked at me straight in the eyes and he said
welcome to the world of photography.
And that blew my mind I was like okay so the quest is
you know, let's go get real sunset,
let's go get some real blue hour
and I started doing that and my first photo was horrible.
This is some of my first sunset, blue hour, golden hour,
they look like nothing.
So after years of practice I figured out a good way
and I started getting some good photos.
And in this video I want to give you 10 tricks,
starting from the least important to the most important
on shooting cities, things I've learned that can maybe
help you take better photos of cities while you're traveling
or if you live in a nice city.
So here we are!
Use leading lines.
Leading lines are amazing to give depth to your photograph.
The problem especially in cities, when you take something
and you're like very flat, you're with a building in front
and you're parallel to it, there's not much depth.
It's really cool to have some depth and using road
and streets and little dirt roads is a great way
to create depth in your photography.
Use rule of 3rd.
Rule of 3rd is really important because
you can place the most interesting subject on a side of
your photo and it's gonna make it more dynamic,
it's gonna make it more interesting.
Rule of 3rd really helps your composition.
Under expose bad weather.
(thunder crackling)
Bad weather can make amazing black and white
and if you under expose it you're gonna get all the details
of the skies, dramatic skies and you turn it into a
black and white, you use some of my presets
and you have a killer photography.
Foreground, middle ground, background.
You see, the thing that I spend the most time
when I do seascape is finding the right foreground element.
You know it can be a statue, it can be some people walking,
it can be a little stairs.
Whatever it is that's gonna give more depth
to your photo, it's gonna tell a better story.
Anybody can take a photo of a blue vernacular at night.
You know, with a great sunset.
But, you need to have a good foreground.
Foreground is gonna make the difference between
your professional photo or the everybody photo.
You know, the thousands of tourist taken photos out there.
So look for this foreground element
and it's gonna make your photos stick out of cities.
Play with long exposure to erase people.
Long exposures is gonna make anything move disappear.
I have been able to get this shot for example
of the Musidor piege, you know, right at sunset,
it was loaded with people.
But the long exposure erase everybody.
Same thing with this photo of Notre Dame.
So don't hesitate, close your shutter, (mumbles),
put it on a tripod and erase all these people
in a very natural way.
Try to not get a whole bunch of tourists in your shot.
And that's really tricky because
the nicest city in the world are full of tourists.
So there's different tricks.
One you can go high vantage view.
That's always really cool you know.
Find places to shoot from high because then the tourists
are very small and it does not distract so much
the eyes of the viewer.
Or use super long exposure to erase everybody.
Or just use water if you have like a river
like the Seine river, the Thames you know,
the Hudson whatever, use it as a foreground element
so that you can see the city and you don't have
people in the shot because a lot of tourists
will distract from the beauty of the city.
Use Instagram or Google Image to prepare your shots.
For example, I just did a book on Barcelona and I've
never been to Barcelona.
So I used Google Image you know I Google like
best photographic spots in the city,
I go on Instagram I look for keywords
and I make collections on Instagram of my favorite
shots that I see, favorite composition.
It's great for inspiration so you don't waste time
when you are not so long in the city, you know where to go,
you know the composition that works.
It's great for inspiration.
Try to shoot at the right time of the day.
That was the introduction of this video
and the major epiphany that I had when I shot a photography
which is, you start usually, I only work usually
golden hour, an hour before sunset, that's the golden hour.
Right at sunset which is usually about a half an hour.
Then half an hour the blue hour.
And usually that's about it.
And shooting in that time is really the best.
We can also do sunrise but
I'll go into more details on that.
The 15 minutes magic moment, what is that?
Well in every city, when the city lights turn on,
for the next 15 minutes, this is the best time
to take some of the photos because what happens is that
it's not the night yet, it's not dark yet,
it's the blue hour but the whole city is light up.
And usually this is when I take most of the photos
and I stop after.
It is the blue hour but it is special kind of cityscapes
blue hour and you should watch for it, you will love it.
Shoot at sunrise, probably in the last 15 years
the best photos that I got was at sunrise.
Why, because in big cities, at sunrise you have a lot less
people, you often have a good light and it's just awesome.
Also if you go to Paris like me and you see the
Seine river is very flat in the morning
and you can get some really interesting mirror effect
that's only available very early in the morning.
So sunrise is probably your best bet
to get the most incredible cityscapes.
One more thing, check out this playlist
that I prepared for you,
it's some of my best videos that I've every done,
subscribe to my channel, leave me a little like
or a comment and watch this playlist,
it can change your life as a photographer right now.