I was living in Houston in 1986. In July, when Jean-Michel Jarre played his huge concert Rendez-vous Houston on the west end of downtown, my photographer friend George O Jackson Jr and I organized all the logistics to go and shoot it from the best viewpoint in Sabine Park. George O's photos where primed by Jarre. Therefore, I got to meet Jean-Michel Jarre and his beautiful wife Charlotte Rampling in George O's magnificent apartment. Jean-Michel Jarre saw my photos and liked them too.
From there on, Jarre invited George O Jackson and I to shoot his following mega-concerts. The first one was Rendez-vous Lyon in France in 1986, at the occasion of the visit of Pope Jean-Paul II, which I shot with George O. The next one was Destination Docklands, in London in 1989, under pouring rain. Then came Jarre's mega-concert Paris La Défense on the 14th of July 1990, which could be seen over miles into the Champs Elysées. Finally, Jean-Michel Jarre did the "Europe in Concerts" tour in 1993. It was a series of smaller (but still great) outdoor concerts in 14 European cities. I shot the one in Brussels Heysel Park (Aug. 24, 1993) and in Versailles (Sept. 24, 1993 - but I lost all photos). This was the last concert I could find the time to shoot.
Three of Jarre's concerts held a place in the Guinness Book of Records as the largest "rock concert" in history:
First, Paris La Concorde in 1979 (1 million people);
Recently I retrieved my photos of Jean-Michel Jarre's concerts I could put my hands on. Unfortunately many of them were lost during my moves or got damaged in storage. However some are still OK - digitized here for you to enjoy!
Click on a photo to enlarge it.
For Jean-Michel Jarre's concerts, I generally arrived two or three days earlier and had a full access badge. So during the rehearsals, I was on stage shooting photos of Jarre and his musicians. For the day of the concert, I had selected the most suitable location to shoot global views. I always used simultaneously two or three cameras with different lenses and two tripods. This was needed to get different view angles and because several second exposures are needed to properly capture the richness of the fireworks.
Many of my photos of Jean-Michel Jarre's concerts were used by press agencies (such as SIPA Press and Stills) and to illustrate some of Jean-Michel Jarre's books. Also, two of my photos made the Lyon's cover of his Houston-Lyon album. And recently, several of my photos were used to illustrate a Jean Michel Jarre´s biography book in Brasilian: "O Homem Que Faz a Luz Dançar" (The Man Who Makes the Light Dance) by Renato Mundt. Also, they were used as a basis for a photo exhibition organized in Sao Paulo by Renato Mundt for Jean-Michel Jarre's 60th birthday: see www.jarre60anos.com.
I shot my photos of Jean-Michel Jarre's concerts using Nikon EL cameras
with several lenses including Nikkor 20mm f4, Nikkor 50mm f1.8 and Nikkor 80-200 f4.
I mainly used Fujicolor Provia (100 ASA, sometimes pushed to 200 ASA),
as well as Ektachrome 160 ASA Tungsten (balanced for artificial light).
