The setting for the portrait of the theatre correspondent Elsa was to be the Theatre Nationale de Chaillot based just next to the Eiffel tower inside the Trocadero.
The Trocadero with it's Art Deco architecture is quite imposing and stands apart from the style of architecture found in the rest of the city. I had never been inside and once I had entered the foyer found the building even more impressive on the inside
We had to wait for a staff member to greet us to give us a tour or where we could and couldn't shoot while waiting we began the session with a few shots next to a statue of Jean Vilar the French actor and theatre director (thanks Wikipedia).
Once he had arrived and shown us round we moved into the auditorium itself which was huge and in it's empty silent state a little eerie. The shots in here were fine but it didn't really give a sense of the place and could have been any theatre
In the entrance to the auditorium were some huge pillars and placing Elsa between them gave some nice shots, I liked the fact that she seems in the centre of a space, in touch with it
To finish off we went back to the main stairway that led from the main foyer down to the auditorium itself. The huge mural on the wall acted a really nice backdrop, I wanted to get across a sense of the size of the space so these images were taken with me lying flat on my stomach on the floor in order to get the ceiling in the frame and exaggerate the scale
Elsa was a very willing sitter up for trying different ideas as we went along, it always makes a shoot easier if you have a sitter who is relaxed and comfortable with the situation.
While we were shooting a passing security guard took an interest and hung around for a bit. As I felt I happy we'd got all the shots we needed I asked him if he fancied having his picture taken with Elsa and he stepped up to the mark
After seeing the result he asked for one by himself and of course I was only too happy to...
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