Fans of ThruMyLens know that I recently returned from a trip to Europe – a 55 th birthday present to myself. I hit three countries and four cities in seven days – a very aggressive schedule. The primary objective would be site seeing and photography. Two of the cities I visited I had been to previously – Munich and Stuttgart. But two of the cities I visited were unfamiliar territory with lots of photo opportunities – Paris and London. Given the short time in each city (about 3 days) I wanted to take guided tours as opposed to wandering around by myself. Specifically, I was hoping to get a guided tour from someone who knew the best vantage points to photograph the iconic points of interest in each city. Another key consideration for me is that I wanted to do some night photography. And shooting by myself in foreign cities at night with thousands of dollars in camera equipment seemed like a bad idea. I did some research on Trip Advisor on night photography tours in Paris and hit upon Aperture Tours and their “Paris Photography Masterclass – Private Photography Lesson. The price seems to fluctuate a bit based on the time of the year, but I paid $178.00, which seemed quite reasonable for a private tour with an
instructor and myself.  The listing on trip advisor for this tour listed the following itinerary:

• The Cathedrale Notre-Dame
• The Louvre
• The Eiffel Tower
• The Arc de Triomphe
• Place de l’Hotel de Ville
• The Champs Elysses or fountains at Place dela Concorde
• The Pont des Arts and dome of the Institute de France
• The Pantheon
• The Sacre-Coeur

I arrived at the appointed meeting spot well ahead of the meeting time. My instructor (Michiru Nakayama) arrived at the meeting point right on time.  While Michiru was delightful and very well meaning, I would have preferred a different instructor/guide. The first problem was that after initial introductions were made, she immediately asked me “where would you like to go?” I sort of blankly looked at her rather stunned. I had signed up for the course weeks before and the course described a fixed itinerary of locations we would shoot. I had put zero thought into where I wanted to go, expected to be taken to the locations on the itinerary. I explained this as best I could to Michiru who continued to press me on what I wanted to see. Eventually she got her phone out and looked at the class
description, and we set off. The second problem was that as you might guess Michiru was anative of Japan. I can’t say that we always understood one another – I think we did maybe 80% of the time. But photography can be technical and to be an effective instructor in a courseadvertised as being taught in English, I think the instructor needs to be a fluent in English.

On the plus side, she did take me to a number of fantastic locations and I got many fantastic photos – my minimum requirements were met.  One the minus side, we visited less than half the locations which were advertised and she did absolutely no technical instruction in night photography as was advertised.  She did ask me what I thought I needed to improve and I was honest in my response.  I feel I’m reasonably proficient in the fundamental technical aspects of photography like the exposure triangle, and I typically shoot in manual mode.  Where I struggle is the creative side of photography – I don’t have a naturally artistic bone in my body.  So she mainly focused on composition.  Was this helpful?  Yes and no.  She tried to get me see things differently…to frame up shots differently.  Look for different angles, etc.  Sometimes she would say, “shoot it this way.”  So I’d try to shoot what I thought she wanted.  Sometimes she would like what she say when I showed her the photo…and other times not.  So I sort of fumbled around trying to do what I thought she wanted, without really being shown how or why.

Here are some of the better photos I got during the course/tour:

 

Despite being short changed on the locations we visited, I did enjoy the tour and feel I came away with some fantastic shots – the weather was perfect!  But I can’t help but wonder if my experience would have been different (better) with one of the other instructors.  Do let me know in the comments what you think of the photos.