Golden hour at Notre Dame
When I was planning the trip to Paris, I knew that Notre Dame was one of the places I wanted to photograph. You pretty much have to, right? Along with the Eiffel Tower, it’s a type of proof that you actually went there.
And though I love to shoot the “smaller things” in famous cities, I make time to shoot the “big things” too. This one definitely qualifies...and it’s well worth seeing. We also took the tour to the top, which involved climbing a massive amount of stairs - my legs are still tired. :-) But when you get up top, the view is pretty impressive.
Anyways, I obviously didn’t shoot this one from the top. I got lucky with some good light that evening, and nice clouds which happened to be in the right place when I was in the right place. After shooting around the front of Notre Dame (which in addition to being incredibly crowded also had a huge set of bleachers there) I went looking for a more interesting view (and what would prove to be a prettier picture).
It took a little back and forth, but ultimately I made my way down to the River Seine and found a nice spot, just out of everyone’s way. With the strong golden light coming from behind me (that’s my shadow along the path, if you haven’t noticed) and illuminating the face of the cathedral, it was just a matter of firing brackets one after another and experimenting with slightly different compositions.
In other words, I have a million more of these to share some day. :-)
