Why I Traveled to Paris at 5 AM for a Single Photo

I needed to capture Paris before the city woke up.

The plan was simple. Get to the Place du Trocadéro at dawn, lock in the angle, and nail a wide frame of the Eiffel Tower under moody, overcast light. But working with a crew means expecting the unexpected. I turned around mid-setup to find Kev positioning himself for a completely ridiculous perspective, holding his camera with one hand while posing against the sky.

The light was fading fast. We only had a ten-minute window before the clouds shifted and lost that deep blue hue. I dialed in my settings, ran 24fps at f/2.8 on a wide lens to pull in every drop of ambient light, and kept rolling. The result? Pure gold. When you chase shots around the world, you realize the unplanned moments often turn out to be the real prize.