Montmartre: The Curse of Sacré Cœur

With its cobbled streets, the stunning Sacré Cœur Basilica, artists, and bistros, Montmartre is full of charm. Perched atop a small hill in the 18th arrondissement, this iconic Parisian district has retained the village atmosphere that once captivated the artists of the 19th and 20th centuries. A true melting pot of art and inspiration for cinema, the neighborhood of Montmartre continues to surprise me and is a great destination for travel photographers. However, sometimes, not everything goes exactly as you’ve planned. And the two times I’ve gone to shoot photos of Sacré Cœur, I’ve encountered some… technical issues.

During my first trip to Paris, I was with a tour company and had limited time to explore and take photos independently. I was there for a few days and had little control over when or how I could shoot. To make matters worse, I discovered, too late, that one of my lenses needed servicing. So, many of the images I captured were slightly out of focus since the lens was not focusing to infinity properly. Which basically means subjects that are far away and appear to be completely in focus, are actually just slightly out of focus. The degree in which they are out of focus, very annoyingly, is often not even apparent until you get home and see the full size images. It’s then you realize the images are basically useless. If the images are quite small, you might not be able to tell – but trust me – these images I took were no bueno. The featured image of this post is one example of an image that had this focusing issue, as well as the image below. To the trained eye, these images definitely just look off, and even low resolution – but in reality it’s just that they are slightly out of focus.

As luck would have it, during my latest trip to Paris, I encountered yet another technical setback. While attempting to capture Sacré Cœur a second time, it appeared that my Canon 50mm f/1.2L lens was malfunctioning. I was getting error codes on my camera, lens communication issue, etc. I later realized that the problem came from one of my main camera bodies (Canon 5D Mark IV), which had a connection issue with the gold pins, which are what allows the camera body to communicate with the lens itself. Unfortunately, I didn’t have any isopropyl alcohol to try to clean them properly while I was out and about. So, basically, one camera was completely out of commission. For the remainder of the trip, I was restricted to using only one camera at a time. That might not sound like a big deal, but to me it’s a huge setback.

So was it such a big deal in this case for me? The biggest issue was time. I’m someone that always tries to fix things myself, so of course I spent an hour trying to troubleshoot, looking up information on forums, trying to reset my camera, update its firmware — you name it. Anything that I could do to try to get the issue fixed so that I wouldn’t have yet another setback for the entire day ahead of me.

The 2nd big issue this caused is also time related, but in a different way. Whenever I’m out shooting a place like Paris, I usually have a pretty tight schedule, and that schedule takes into consideration that I don’t need to stop to change lenses whenever I encounter different subjects. To help shoot much more efficiently, I always shoot with two bodies. My usual gear that I shoot with is my Sigma EF 24-70 f2.8 ART for wider angles and general street photography. Then, for close-ups and more reach I rely on my Canon EF 70-200 f2.8 MK iii.

On this particular day I wanted to give myself some alternative creative focus with a 50mm as my second lens, so this meant that I now only had my 70-200 lens that could be realistically used – and that meant that for the rest of the day I would be restricted to the 70-200 range.

Now don’t get me wrong, sometimes shooting with one camera is really the best way to go. But generally when I am forced to shoot with one camera and lens, I opt for the 50mm 1.2L if I have it, or if not, the 24-70mm. Sometimes I choose one camera due to safety reasons, but usually its just because it’s raining.

When it’s not raining I would prefer to use a full-frame camera and a 70-200mm. But it’s hard to carry all the larger gear in one hand and balance an umbrella in the other, simply because they weigh so much more. So opting with the smaller lens + camera body without the battery grip is usually my solution. And in fact eventually on this very trip to Paris I needed to shoot with that exact setup – but that really wasn’t what I needed or had planned for during this shoot in particular – hence this post 😉

In any case, thankfully this trip I noticed the error in advance, and I had a second camera body attached to my Canon 70-200 f2.8L mk III. That allowed me to get at least some of the images that I wanted to capture in the end. It may not have been 100% what I was looking for, or what I had initially imagined creatively in terms of the different kinds of images that I wanted to take, including more close up shots near the church itself, and some amazing depth of field shots with ~f/1.8 ( as my 50mm 1.2L creates beautiful images at that aperture range ). I was also now far more limited with the time I was able to dedicate to Sacré Cœur – but you know what, I’ll be happy ( or maybe hesitant at this point lol ) to go and try to capture her again.

And of course, the wider establishing angle shot I was looking for? I went with my trusty backup of my backup that I’ve always got on me: My cellphone. It might not be exactly what I had originally planned, but at least I was able to capture something. And, to be honest, this whole experience encouraged me to lean into the creativity that comes from working within limitations.

When you get to the point of actually capturing Sacré Cœur, I’ve found that it’s already a monument that is a bit more challenging to capture due to its location, as well as the available shooting angles that you have available to you as a pedestrian in order to capture its facade. I wouldn’t say that it’s as challenging to capture (well) as Santa Croce in Florence, for example, but it does come with its own challenges – not even considering when your camera equipment is on the fritz 😉

If you see its smaller curved domes, for example, in combination with other straight lines, it’s quite an effort to get things perfectly aligned, as you always need to capture it from at least a slight angle to get a clear shot of it. This is particularly true if you’re shooting with a 70-200 lens like I was restricted with in this particular case.

Where 70-200 did shine was with being able to capture some of the finer details up close, as well as get creative with some alternative framing and playing with some depth-of-field techniques, which both resulted in the creation of some black and white versions as well once I got home (because, why not, right?).

The point of this post? I just wanted to share an experience that I hope provided some behind the scenes insights as to what photographers need to deal with on an ( unfortunately ) pretty regular basis. Issues with lenses and camera bodies. Batteries dying or failing. Memory card problems, Rain, Sand, Dust. Too hot, too cold – you name it. It’s why we have to have multiple cameras and lenses, and back ups of our back ups of our backups. If everything always worked perfectly all the time like well-oiled machines, maybe our hobby/profession wouldn’t be so expensive! ( You’re right, who am I seriously kidding. Laughs, and sort of cries at the same time ;D )

Have you ever been cursed with technical issues during a shoot? I know I’ve definitely got plenty of other stories related to stuff like this that I could share as well. Maybe there’s one place where you’ve been particularly…unlucky? I’d love to hear your stories and how you pushed through to continue creating.