I was set to assist a friend and photographer for his “Spring Fashion” shooting in the beautiful Parisian park of Saint-Cloud and wanted to take advantage of being there to ask one of my models to come and join me after the shoot I was assisting. Just about when we were ready to start taking pictures after nearly 2 hours of preparation, make-up, hair dressing and styling, a police car stopped by and the cops told us we needed a written authorization to use the park for photography. We started arguing the pictures wouldn’t be used commercially but the cops called more cops and at some point we were facing about 5 or 6 cops who didn’t look like they wanted to pick-nick with us. Funny - they told us we were in breach with the rules while we didn’t even actually start taking pictures. Our intentions were criminal, they told us. And our model was certainly under age (it turns out she is 22), maybe even an illegal immigrant (not even…) and we looked suspicious anyway. So… there wasn’t much more to discuss, and as we didn’t much care spending the rest of the weekend in a police station we packed up and left the park. On the other side of the fence, just between the river and the highway, we realized we didn’t have a Plan B to find a shooting location. After about 30 hectic minutes when the stylist, the MUA and the models were on their way to get nervous we finally found a spot under a bridge over the river Seine. And… the location turned out to be fantastic. There were large boats anchored there, a wall that hid us from any further policemen patrolling on the road and the light was just perfect for what we wanted to shoot. So after sending a text to my model to cancel the shoot I finally called him to come to the new location and here is an example of what we did there. More on www.jancphoto.com.

During my last trip to Atlanta I had the opportunity to meet with Eric (check his Modelmayhem page here) and I tried some flash balanced sunlight snapshots with him. We shot this series in Midtown, close to a painted wall that I used as a backdrop. The sun was setting down so the light intensity wasn’t that strong and I could use just one Nikon SB-900 strobe held by my friend and assistant Habeeb. We used a translucent umbrella to diffuse the light. You can see the whole series on my website (see LOCATION SHOOTS section and then Portfolio Eric Ellerby).

Alpana Vij is a Singapore based Indian painter who recently contacted me and asked if she could use one of my photographs as inspiration for one of her paintings. Given the quality of her work I gladly accepted and was enthusiast to contribute to her work of art, even by a small piece. Now that I have the result in front of me I am even happier and actually feel honored. Alpana takes my photography to a higher level; the light is no more an external source like in a photographer’s studio - it comes out of the model himself in a myriad of elementary movements that add up to a maelstrom, yet gravitating around the focal point of the picture, the eyes. Like in a hurricane the eye is the concentration of the tormented forces around and once you have looked at them you can’t escape the contact. The force of Alpana’s interpretation is amazing. I wish she could find inspiration in more of my pictures. Visit her web site here. Here is the painting (model: Achille, Acrylic on Plywood 24″ X 18″).

Atlanta was again on my flight routes in October and while traveling prevented me from setting up photoshoots in my home town Paris it allowed me to do a couple of great pictures on the road. Kai is a personal couch and gym teacher who is very busy but he agreed to pose for a quick series of pictures that I took together with my friend Habeeb, another photographer, who owns a studio in Midtown. Here is one of them: