Jeffrey Milstein sends us his latest series accompanied with this text.
In late October I was granted a rarely given permission to fly over the center of Paris to photograph (for the second time – the first time was in 2019). There is a French law that prevents this from normally happening. If you google, you will see that only about six photographers have received permission to fly low over Paris since the first aerial photographs by Nadar from a balloon over Paris in 1858. When I photographed in 2019, for my Rizzoli book, Paris From the Air, Notre Dame was covered in tarps and the authorities restricted photographing it. In 2025, I decided to ask if I could get another flight to photograph Notre Dame, as well as other parts of the city again. It costs $1,000 just to make the application. I was granted one hour inside the city ring, in late October, on one of three days between 5 and 7, (we could photograph areas outside the city ring like La Defense as not part of the hour). A helicopter flying low over the city was so unusual that the flight was written up in newspapers. On Wednesday October 23, the weather was flyable. There were clouds, so the photos are different from my previous shoots in sun. They are softer and are more pastel, and I shot both my signature straight down, and landscape style photos. I was in a twin engine helicopter with the door open, with two cameras around my neck. I had an experienced pilot, who was able to quickly get me into positions around the city, and I shot 2000 high resolution pictures over two hours in the air. I envision many of landscapes as large prints, with some as wide as 80″.
The French police gave me a map with a several buildings that are military or government, that they want blurred or pixelated. I think it adds an interesting element which will be added to some of the photos.
Jeffrey Milstein
www.jeffreymilstein.com
@jeffreymilstein
