Two years ago when I went to Paris I wanted to do a photoshoot with a model with cherry blossoms. I got in contact with a model and she pulled out at the last minute. I was quite disappointed and ever since then I had this idea in my head…
Not wanting to be disappointed again this time, and wanting a souvenir for myself, I thought, “Hey! Why don’t I contact a photographer to take photos of me?” I wanted something awesome to celebrate my time in France and in Europe (with or without cherry blossoms). These days since I move around and I live in small places I prefer to spend less money on ‘stuff’ and more money on experiences (such as travel or eating in nice restaurants) and photoshoots I guess also counts as an experience and nothing beats photos as a priceless souvenir.
I had a pretty huge idea in my head. I wanted to sort of re-create the “Miss Dior Chérie” parfum ad, but at the same time I didn’t want to copy it. Well OK, I just wanted to take photos in Paris with the Eiffel Tower and helium balloons.
During my research about helium balloons I learnt a lot of facts. Basically, helium is expensive and the world is running out 🙁 and those pictures you see of people with lots of huge helium balloons? Well it costs hundreds! And I didn’t have a humongous budget.
Meanwhile, finding a good photographer is no easy task for a photographer. I know exactly what I want (someone who takes pictures like I do and ‘sees’ what I see), someone who takes excellent and creative photos, someone with an easy to get along with personality and someone who is within my budget. Oh, and someone who is free on my dates.
It was no easy task (and I researched both French speaking and English speaking photographers) but eventually I narrowed it down to about three.
From his email reply, I got a good feeling about Julien LB of PicMyTrip Paris. He’s French, Parisian and speaks fluent English (not that it mattered to me since I speak French, but it was a bonus). He really seemed to like my idea about what I wanted. I actually hesitated telling him I am also a photographer but then I thought why not? Choosing the right time of day to get the right light was extremely important for me so I mentioned it… he wrote back “I knew you were a photographer or a painter or even a sky lover, just by asking me about the sun on the Eiffel Tower…”
We started getting into extremely long email discussions about sunrise and sunset times, crowds, logistics, buying helium (since we realised that we could not go and buy helium balloons and bring the to the site, we’d have to buy the gas tank and blow them up on site), etc. Neither of us had ever worked with them before and I also realised that helium is very expensive so I couldn’t have huge balloons, only regular sized ones.
and then just under a month later, I had the mammoth photoshoot.
We were both actually exhausted from the previous day but adrenalin always kicks in and the time just flew by. We decided to meet at 7am at Trocadéro (one of my favourite spots in Paris) and it was torture because I was so tired and had to get up before 6am to do my makeup, get dressed, pack extra outfits, etc. I knew there was no way I could manage to take the métro (and I would ruin my dress that I ironed) so I used Uber and it was great. It was wonderful seeing Paris so early in the morning (it was Sunday too) with almost no traffic and no people around yet.
I was so happy because the weather Gods had given us perfect weather. The previous two days it was very cloudy and/or unpredictable but on this day we had glorious sunshine and as it was May and so early it wasn’t that hot either.
I was about 10 minutes late and Julien was already there cutting string for the balloons. Neither of us had ever seen or used a helium tank before and I went on my phone to research and Google how it works… I found a YouTube video and clicked on it and we watched it together and voilà!
So he blew up the balloons while I tied the strings on. Gosh it was such a funny sight and it took way longer than we thought but eventually we were done (and we didn’t even use up all of the helium).
We tied them together at varying heights and off we went. I wore a trenchcoat but then later I didn’t even need it as the excitement and adrenalin was keeping me warm.
Despite my previous 8? trips to Paris, I have never ever seen it in the early morning. I am just not a morning person first of all and when I travel I usually don’t leave the hotel until about 11am-12noon. Although I like to do and see a lot when I’m on holidays, I don’t want to kill myself doing so if I’m tired from the day before.
I could not believe my eyes. Seeing Paris almost without tourists was like a dream. The soft morning sunlight and the beautiful springtime flowers… everything was so perfect I almost wished I wasn’t the model so I could do the photographing myself! Gosh, I want to relive this day over and over again. We saw one bride and groom getting photographed and they later asked to borrow our balloons for their photoshoot, and throughout the morning we kept getting asked by strangers (tourists) if they could take a quick pic with our balloons.
Julien was super great and easy to work with, showing me the pics on his camera’s LCD screen to see if I liked them, and if I suggested something he would usually take it into consideration.
The lavender-coloured flowers were in full bloom and everything was so beautiful. I’ll never forget that golden glow…
We took a few pics at the top of Trocadéro, got into the car and went to the other side at Champ de Mars. Even though I’d brought comfortable shoes with me to change into, I didn’t think we were going to walk that far so walking in high heels on very uneven ground was killing my feet so I took them off and walked barefoot. I’ll never forget Julien’s comment to me which cracked me up, “You must be an Australian because only an Australian would walk around barefoot here!” or something like that.
I wanted to stay here forever but we actually had a second part of the photoshoot to do with a different theme and in a different location… stay tuned for that blogpost!
