Entering the scene
- 📍 Location: Belvedere de Belleville, Paris, France
- 📅 Date: 2021
The covered walkway of the Belleville belvedere, with its graffiti-covered pillars, a flood of low sun at the far end, and a bird crossing the opening at the exact centre of the frame. Two people stand at the rail in silhouette; another couple are walking into the light on the right.
The architecture gives a natural stage: two rows of pillars, a paved floor, a bright rectangle at the end. I framed it frontally and symmetrically, like a theatre set, and then waited for something to occupy it. The bird was luck. The couple were patience.
Shooting straight into the sun at that angle produces the flare across the middle of the picture, and I kept it. Cleaned up, the image would be sharper and far less like the actual experience of standing there at six in the evening with the light in your eyes.
Belleville sits on one of the highest points in Paris, and this terrace looks straight down onto the whole city. It is also, at that hour, entirely local: nobody comes up here who does not live nearby.
I wanted a photograph that behaves like a stage: a frame, a light, and whoever happens to walk into it.
Limited-edition fine-art print from the Skywaven Studios collection, available in several sizes, papers and framing options.
