Recently Jared Polin, better known as “The Fro” visited The City of Lights to add to his portfolio more time-lapse and slow-motion work. Polin takes his viewers along as he journeys through Paris, offering tips along the way.
While Polin offers several different nuggets of photography knowledge throughout the video, what I learned right off the bat, Paris has huge crowds and near endless amounts of stairs. From the Eiffel Tower to the Notre-Dame Cathedral you better be in shape when you're headed to Paris. The Fro almost took a tumble as he traversed down one particular set of tiny, steep stairs, word of caution, watch where you step!
Polin utilizes the new Nikon D850 coupled with a few lenses such as the 35mm f/1.4 and his trusted 24-70mm f/2.8 as he creates his time-lapses throughout the city. Midway through the video, Polin offers a bit of advice that I think should resonate with everyone. Quit trying to do everything all at the same time. We often try to shoot photographs, capture video, maybe throw in some time-lapses into the mix, and we end up getting overwhelmed trying not to miss anything. The key is to focus on what you want to achieve one piece at a time.
Since this particular video was sponsored by Adobe Stock, Polin covers some of the do’s and don’ts when it comes to submitting work for stock. While touring The Louvre and catching a glimpse of The Mona Lisa, Polin was approached by a pair of security guards since he stood out from the crowd who mostly were wielding mobile phones and selfie sticks. The need for model releases definitely shouldn’t be overlooked when filming in heavily congested areas, but tell us what you think about some of Polin’s recommendations he makes throughout the video.
Is anyone really looking up to this guy for inspiration and his photography/videography work ? :D
Meh, I find I can never get enough perspective from a photographer. While anyone can be overkill, I'm just trying to leverage the internet for some viewpoints. And really, we're all taking some inspiration or stylistic ideas from just about anyone we see here... whether it's a "not my style", or a "wow, that gives me an idea".
It is not a matter of looking up to anyone. I appreciate Jared's backstory and respect the what and why of what he is doing. I've been doing this a very long time and I learn something new from the most novice photographers, even from their mistakes. Sometimes the most novice doing things wrong can provide a perspective not provided by experts exhibiting perfection. I don't learn many new techniques from these sorts of videos any longer, after 45 years much of it is just a rehashing of lessons learned before most I review were born, but... they all have something to share and I respect and appreciate the fact that they do.
My D850 images of the same city taken over 4 days ... I think better weather helps! https://nypics.smugmug.com/Travel/Paris-2017/
Pretty nice but I thought your framing was too tight on several of them.
That could have been an aesthetic/artistic choice...or that I had my 24-70 but NOT my 17-35 with me on that trip!!
I should have been more obvious than, "I thought..." to indicate it was just my point of view. :-(
I'd definitely have brought something wider for a trip like that but, of course, it doesn't take very long before you're wishing you'd left things behind! :-)
Looking back, would you have gone with the 17-35, along with the 70-200, and not the 24-70? Or maybe send your wife to "Sherpa" school. ;-)
The 17-35 would have been the better pair with the 70-200... My 17-35 (Nikon) does not have VR (and no tripod either!), and I find a bit softer at the edges than my 24-70... My wife is NOT a good Sherpa- in fact I drive her crazy changing lenses as it is!!
I enjoyed your gallery on Paris Robert. I like many of the tight crops. In my own history of photography, I have always leaned toward cropping tight, not in the originals, I learned a long time ago to leave plenty of AIR in images, since back in the analog film and print days, digital manipulation was not readily available, so we shot with more AIR and cropped for viewing later, but I always enjoyed what I coined as "GEOMETRICS" the composition of angles and shapes. A friend who went with me to shoot cars once noticed that I spent very little time on the car and far, far more time on the headlights, curves of the body lines, logos, brandings, shifter knobs than I did the car itself. Likely from lessons of my mentors... for every wide (Establishing Shot) make sure I have four TIGHT (CLOSE UPS). And always shoot a VERTICAL of every scene... FOR THE COVER as I was taught. Again, lessons learned before the digital age, but I still use them today. I recognize that what you display, may be tighter crops than the original image and that is really how it should be, shoot with plenty of AIR and then edit for the end use. Keep up the excellent work! Thanks for sharing!
Thanks!! With my Nikon D850 (and this was its' first outing) 45MP does give you a bit of 'wiggle room' for cropping!! (I shoot a lot of dance and the D850 with a battery grip gives you 9FPS and a lot of cropping room to capture those unpredictable leaps/moves- I like it better than my D4 for action now because of that!)
I have never understood photographers who feel that cropping is somehow 'cheating' - it is part of the artistic process along with RAW processing. Our eyes see so much differently than a camera that to convey the real visual impression of an image requires work. Our brains are always 'post-processing' the images from our retinas...
Your images of Nike at the Louvre are particularly wonderful. Especially the one of the person taking an image of her with the statue blurred out in the background. Well done!
TY- I always find the images of observers in museums interesting- as is pointed out in the video there are much better pictures of most of the art works on the web shot under well lit controlled conditions than you can take in a busy museum... (I have a lot in Monet's Orangerie focusing on the lookers more than the art)
At 1'11, it's the City Hall, not the Louvre (sorry to mention it :-). I admit though that both are agregate of the same architectural styles.
And your video shows a constant problem in Paris : the crowd ! Everywhere, everytime. Not easy to deal with that.