The Gates of Paradise – A photo shoot in Lyon, France
[Now that our visit of the ruined priory church of Colchester is over, and before I resume uploading photos from our Christmas 2024 and New Year’s 2025 trip to England, let us take a break and come briefly back to France to document the successful completion of an impressive restoration work I was happy to be part of, photographically speaking.]
The Gates of Paradise, so dubbed by Michelangelo himself, are monumental bronze doors that give access into the Saint John baptistry, which stands in front of the Santa Maria del Fiore “duomo” cathedral in Florence, Italy. Those massive doors, 5.10 meters tall by 3.20 meters wide, are a masterpiece of Renaissance art sculpted mostly by Lorenzo Ghiberti around 1442. Further to the devastating flood of River Arno in 1966, the orignal doors were taken away and stored in the safety of a nearby museum, to be replaced on-site by copies.
A Wikipedia notice in French can be found here: fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Porte_du_Paradis (doesn’t seem to exist in English).
In 1841, the City of Lyon, at the behest of a then-well known Lyonnais painter, Jean-Claude Bonnefond (1796–1860), ordered a casting of the portal to be made by the Museum of Fine Arts of Paris. The cast was installed in the Museum of Fine Arts of Lyon, in the Palais Saint-Pierre (Saint Peter’s Palace), thus named because the building in which it is is what remains of the former abbey of Saint-Pierre-les-Nonnains, founded in the 9th century for Benedictine nuns.
In 1936, the cast was taken down, disassembled and subsequently broken down into more than one hundred pieces as its fragile self was not-so-carefully moved from one temporary storage place to another. Acquired by the Musée des Moulages (Museum of Casts) of Lyon, the fragments were stored there for several decades. When it was decided to restore and reassemble them, the Fondation du Patrimoine, one of the non-profit heritage organizations I work for as a pro bono photographer, was called upon to provide the 50,000-euro financing, and I was asked to take photos, first of the pre-restoration fragments in their storage area in 2023, then of the Gates re-assembled, restored and put back up in the museum hall, in the only location where the ceiling is high enough to accommodate them, in March 2025.
To document this project, I will upload some “before” photos, as well as, of course, some “after” ones. You will note that, around 1910, a patina was applied onto the cast as it was meant to reproduce as faithfully as possible, not the shiny, golden aspect of the brand new bronze, but the faded one the Gates exhibited at the beginning of the 20th century. It is of course this faded aspect that the restoration sought to retrieve —quite successfully so, I must say.
Strobist and technical info: I provide this information solely for the purpose of so–called “strobist” groups on Flickr (i.e., groups practicing off-camera flash lighting), where it is mandatory. Please feel free to ignore it if you are not interested or a member of such groups.
One Godox AD600 Pro II monolight on a Profoto light stand in lateral position to camera right, 2 meters from subject and 2.5 meters above ground (about midway through height of subject), firing at 1/2 ¼ power through a Phottix Pro 150–cm Raja octabox with double diffuser; and another AD600 Pro II studio strobe on a Profoto light stand in lateral position to camera left, 2 meters from subject and 2.5 meters above ground (about midway through height of subject), firing at 1/1 power through a Godox 120–cm S120W softbox with double diffuser.
Strobes set and triggered via Godox X Pro II radio controller on the camera’s hot shoe, manual mode. Sekonic L–858D light meter used to balance light sources. Manfrotto 161 MK2B geared tripod with Benro GD3–WH geared head.
Nikon Z7 II camera body. Lenses: Nikkor 45mm, ƒ/2.8 D PC tilt-shift macro lens with FTZ II adapter, manual focus, for the photo of the entire Gates; Nikkor Z 100–400mm, ƒ/4.5–5.6 S lens for the closeups. Camera triggered remotely via Pixel Oppilas RW–221 radio transmitter and receiver.
A second iPhone snapshot of the behind-the-scenes for the photoshoot of the restored Gates of Paradise in the main exhibition hall of the Musée des Moulages (Museum of Casts) in Lyon: this one shows the camera high up on the gigantic Manfrotto 161 geared tripod, with the 100-400mm telephoto used for the closeups.
Here the tripod has been moved as much as possible to the left to align the camera with the left side panels of the Gates of Paradise cast.
This photo also shows the neutral and soft indirect lighting of the museum. It was easy to overpower it with the two AD600 Pro II studio flashes, so that the ambient light would not affect the final photographs.
The Gates of Paradise – A photo shoot in Lyon, France
[Now that our visit of the ruined priory church of Colchester is over, and before I resume uploading photos from our Christmas 2024 and New Year’s 2025 trip to England, let us take a break and come briefly back to France to document the successful completion of an impressive restoration work I was happy to be part of, photographically speaking.]
The Gates of Paradise, so dubbed by Michelangelo himself, are monumental bronze doors that give access into the Saint John baptistry, which stands in front of the Santa Maria del Fiore “duomo” cathedral in Florence, Italy. Those massive doors, 5.10 meters tall by 3.20 meters wide, are a masterpiece of Renaissance art sculpted mostly by Lorenzo Ghiberti around 1442. Further to the devastating flood of River Arno in 1966, the orignal doors were taken away and stored in the safety of a nearby museum, to be replaced on-site by copies.
A Wikipedia notice in French can be found here: fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Porte_du_Paradis (doesn’t seem to exist in English).
In 1841, the City of Lyon, at the behest of a then-well known Lyonnais painter, Jean-Claude Bonnefond (1796–1860), ordered a casting of the portal to be made by the Museum of Fine Arts of Paris. The cast was installed in the Museum of Fine Arts of Lyon, in the Palais Saint-Pierre (Saint Peter’s Palace), thus named because the building in which it is is what remains of the former abbey of Saint-Pierre-les-Nonnains, founded in the 9th century for Benedictine nuns.
In 1936, the cast was taken down, disassembled and subsequently broken down into more than one hundred pieces as its fragile self was not-so-carefully moved from one temporary storage place to another. Acquired by the Musée des Moulages (Museum of Casts) of Lyon, the fragments were stored there for several decades. When it was decided to restore and reassemble them, the Fondation du Patrimoine, one of the non-profit heritage organizations I work for as a pro bono photographer, was called upon to provide the 50,000-euro financing, and I was asked to take photos, first of the pre-restoration fragments in their storage area in 2023, then of the Gates re-assembled, restored and put back up in the museum hall, in the only location where the ceiling is high enough to accommodate them, in March 2025.
To document this project, I will upload some “before” photos, as well as, of course, some “after” ones. You will note that, around 1910, a patina was applied onto the cast as it was meant to reproduce as faithfully as possible, not the shiny, golden aspect of the brand new bronze, but the faded one the Gates exhibited at the beginning of the 20th century. It is of course this faded aspect that the restoration sought to retrieve —quite successfully so, I must say.
Strobist and technical info: I provide this information solely for the purpose of so–called “strobist” groups on Flickr (i.e., groups practicing off-camera flash lighting), where it is mandatory. Please feel free to ignore it if you are not interested or a member of such groups.
One Godox AD600 Pro II monolight on a Profoto light stand in lateral position to camera right, 2 meters from subject and 2.5 meters above ground (about midway through height of subject), firing at 1/2 ¼ power through a Phottix Pro 150–cm Raja octabox with double diffuser; and another AD600 Pro II studio strobe on a Profoto light stand in lateral position to camera left, 2 meters from subject and 2.5 meters above ground (about midway through height of subject), firing at 1/1 power through a Godox 120–cm S120W softbox with double diffuser.
Strobes set and triggered via Godox X Pro II radio controller on the camera’s hot shoe, manual mode. Sekonic L–858D light meter used to balance light sources. Manfrotto 161 MK2B geared tripod with Benro GD3–WH geared head.
Nikon Z7 II camera body. Lenses: Nikkor 45mm, ƒ/2.8 D PC tilt-shift macro lens with FTZ II adapter, manual focus, for the photo of the entire Gates; Nikkor Z 100–400mm, ƒ/4.5–5.6 S lens for the closeups. Camera triggered remotely via Pixel Oppilas RW–221 radio transmitter and receiver.
A second iPhone snapshot of the behind-the-scenes for the photoshoot of the restored Gates of Paradise in the main exhibition hall of the Musée des Moulages (Museum of Casts) in Lyon: this one shows the camera high up on the gigantic Manfrotto 161 geared tripod, with the 100-400mm telephoto used for the closeups.
Here the tripod has been moved as much as possible to the left to align the camera with the left side panels of the Gates of Paradise cast.
This photo also shows the neutral and soft indirect lighting of the museum. It was easy to overpower it with the two AD600 Pro II studio flashes, so that the ambient light would not affect the final photographs.