Dedication to craftsmanship

As a portrait photographer, what matters most to me is to capture something different from the subject. It is a challenge and it takes time.
Time which we don’t always have these days as our lives are speeding up.

The rapport between me and the subject is essential to break down that barrier that protects us from the unknown.

I usually get up close to the subject to create this rapport, talking to them and directing them.
I use the shallowest depth of field that a lens can offer. I focus on the eyes through which everything will be said, blurring the rest of the head and body. This allows the viewer to concentrate on the eyes.

So when I was asked by Sigma to use their new Sigma 200mm F2 DG OS | Sports with an f-stop of 2, I was intrigued! 200mm felt a little long for portraits as I usually use an 85mm.

It would require me to be further away from the subject, but at the same time, the length of the lens with such a small f-stop could only enhance the focus on the eyes that I desire so much.

I have a coffee shop in the artistic Marais neighborhood in Paris where I have built a community around specialty coffee and photography.

The way I do coffee is artisanal, where precision is key and where quality is constant, two things that make a great cup over and over.

The community I have built, I have discovered over time, shares these same values.

Values that are also an intrinsic part of Sigma and why I use their cameras and lenses for my photography. Dedication to craftsmanship, precision and quality.

I chose to photograph some of my customers who share these same values. They are designers, artists, craftsmen or who work for companies that adhere to these values.

The weather in Paris has been grey and gloomy and shooting with the 200mm with its F2 aperture and superb image stabilisation allowed me to work in low light conditions whether inside an artist’s studio or out on the street.
Another advantage of such an incredibly low aperture! It is a heavy lens but holding it and shooting hand-held was easy and effortless.

The tripod mount turned into a very convenient way to hold the camera and lens while talking to my subjects or moving from one location to another! Sigma seems to think of these small things that make a photographer’s life easier.

All the controls are ergonomically placed so I didn’t have to search for what I needed to adjust.
When I saw the shallow depth of field, I was thrilled! The length of the lens did not interfere with my direction of my subjects. In fact, in some cases, the distance made certain subjects more at ease. The result was beyond expectation. The eyes in each portrait are very sharp with that soft blur in front and behind them made possible by the 200mm and the 2 f-stop which enhanced the expressiveness of the eyes.

Shooting hand-held in low light normally shows some blurriness especially with a relatively heavy lens, but the 200mm with its superior image stabilisation captured perfectly sharp images. This allowed me more freedom of movement to find the right angle and compositions that I was looking for.

Taking portraits with Sigma 200mm F2 DG OS | Sports lens opened my mind and changed my ideas of what kind of lens would be good for portrait work!

That shallow depth of field on a long lens only made the portraits more intriguing and different than any other lens I have tried before.

The lens’s outstanding image stabilisation gave me confidence that the images would be perfectly sharp in the low-light conditions where I would normally require a tripod. It has certainly gained its place in my arsenal of portrait lenses.