Today Austin and I met some of his highlining friends at Bois de Vincennes, the largest public park in Paris. The park is so incredible, I have never seen anything so enormous. It has four lakes, a zoo, botanical garden, horse racing track, velodrome, and the campus of the French national institute for sports and physical education. Just needs a Starbucks and it's all set, please no I'm kidding. Walking around it was just so beautiful, though, with the lakes covered in ice and the vast amount of greenery and various birds flying about.
One of Austin's friends highlining in Bois de Vincennes, using the harsh back light in my favor.
After a good trek around one of the lakes, we finally meet up with Austin's friends. They already have one longline and a slackline set up and are working on setting up a second longline. I help finish tightening the longline and take out my camera. It was a little hard shooting at mid afternoon, but it made for some great silhouettes. I love my 24-105mm for my everyday lens because it gives me the option of a wide shot for landscape or to capture more of the background and then I can also zoom in and get tighter for portraits and capturing emotion.
The photograph that everybody was taking, but I got a little lower to get some of that grass in the foreground and to be able to see more of the landscape.
As I wait for the guys to get warmed up, I go and shoot some photos of this terrific park. There's a few dozen ducks and swans right at shore and there are several people huddled around taking photographs for their Instagram and Facebook. Whenever I see a situation like that I like to go where everybody isn't. Sure you can get the photo that everybody else is getting, and that's great to have. However, the ones that stand out are the photos that nobody else has, so go to where nobody else is or look in a different direction then everybody else.
At this point I head back over to the group and see they already have some bystanders watching them as they walk across a one inch line that's 200 feet long and ten feet off the ground. Yes, in the photos they aren't that high off the ground, but that's their body weight pushing down on the line. I get several compositions of the shoot in my head and then look for different angles that might work out just as good or better. When taking a photo, always try different angles because that is what will set you apart from everybody else taking photos from eye level. Don't be afraid to get down low or find a vantage point up high. This isn't just for if you're using an expensive DSLR either, do this with your iPhone and your photos will be far better!
Looking the other way and getting the photo that nobody else was taking.
After photographing for a while, I try the slackline and I will say it is much much harder than it looks. Just getting up on the line requires technique so you don't wobble back and forth, let alone balancing well enough to walk across it. A few hours pass and we do head out after I reach my goal of walking five steps! Hope everybody had a great week and check back next Sunday for my next post!