Behind the Scenes with Parkour Paris
I often get asked “How do you find inspiration for your photos?”
Well, we made a behind the scenes video of a typical parkour photo shoot so you can understand the process behind the visuals you see on our social medias.
As you may know, I’m part of Parkour Paris as a coach, athlete and photographer; we give Parkour classes, and perform in events, shows and commercials. On top of all that, we’re always out in the field creating content to share on social media with our fans.
Having to constantly find new ideas can be challenging; you don’t want to bore your fans. You can change locations, styles, or try to come up with crazy poses.
As we decided to meet to shoot some content with Tom (@thomas_mgn), we had the idea to bring Jordan (@jordan_sdk), another team member, to film the photo shoot for a behind the scenes video. Hopefully you enjoy it, and can use it as inspiration for your next photo shoots!
Behind the Scenes #1
We met up on a gloomy Thursday with the crew. Tom was just done giving a private parkour class, and we had 3 hours to spare before the next class. Because all the classes were around the same location, we stuck around for convenience.
That’s how we ended up shooting in Bibliothèque François Mitterrand.
Shooting in this location was a challenging matter, as we had already shot so many times there. I had to come up with unique ideas.
Passerelle Simone de Beauvoir
Walking from Bercy to the Bibliothèque François Mitterrand, you cross the Seine river on a beautiful bridge called Passerelle Simone de Beauvoir, crafted by the Eiffel Company.
That’s where we first stopped, as I noticed a glass elevator shaft that could make for some amazing low-angle shots.
As we were on the bridge, I noticed the leading lines created by the side rails, and thought it would make for interesting pictures it Tom was in the middle of the frame, with the rails guiding the viewer’s eye to him.
Tom wanted to flip from the rail, but after several attempts I wasn’t happy with the results; the background wasn’t interesting, and it was distracting from the action. I decided to get really low (yeah I was literally crawling on the ground to get the shot) and take a low-angle shot of him flipping, in order to have him completely isolated in the picture.
After a while, we agreed we had exhausted our creative ideas on the bridge, and decided to move further towards the Bibliothèque. But just before leaving, we turned back to where we came from, and we had a sudden inspiration flash. The overhanging part of the bridge with leading lines was the perfect combination for some more shots.
Bibliothèque François Mitterrand
The Bibliothèque François Mitterand, also called “BNF” for Bibliothèque Nationale de France (National Library of France), is a famous spot for photography. There are a lot of photographers and instagrammers taking photos there, so the challenge was to come up with unique pictures.
The first ones we got were when we were walking up the stairs towards the main area. When you look at the scene, your eyes naturally follow the stairs all the way up, so I knew it would make sense to get Tom jumping on top of the stairs.
Using the environment, Tom came up with a 360° on the rail, and I thought “Well, let’s twist the camera and screw the horizon”. Don’t be afraid to try unconventional angles for creative shots.
As we got up the stairs, we found a small opening in the tall thin tower you can see on the left side of the above pictures. I think that’s when we had the most fun, with Tom going in the hole and posing for hilarious shots.
In the main location, the walls are made of some sort of shiny metal, reflecting the light. Going close to the walls we could see that it would be perfect for reflection shots.
Looking up at the sky, I saw that if Tom was on top of the wall, he would be framed by 2 towers, one on each side, creating perspective and leading the eye to him.
We started to get tired, and realized we’ve been shooting for 2 hours straight. I think we needed to let off some steam, because we were doing crazy things and just being foolish.
I wanted to try a “levitation” shot, with Tom looking like he was holding my snapback mid air with the force.
After we got the shot, we decided it was the end of the shooting. That’s when Tom took my snapback and threw it in the air, and at this moment I was like “Damn how cool would it be if I could get the hat mid-air with the logo showing??”
Worst. Idea. Ever.
It was damn near impossible to get the perfect shot, with the hat flying AND the logo showing. We spent at least 30 minutes, if not more, trying to get the shot.
But boy oh boy was it worth it.
Hope you liked it, it’s the first time we’re making this kind of content, let me know in the comments if you think we should make more! It’s always nice to hear feedback on what we spend time doing.
