The iconic French Rock 'N' Roller, Johnny Hallyday died on Wednesday, age 74. The funeral service was held for him yesterday at La Madeleine, and the cortege travelled from the Arc de Triomphe (accompanied by around 700 motorbikes), down the Champs Elysées, past Place de la Concorde, and onwards to La Madeleine. There were big screens, music and fans everywhere. Everyone searching for the best viewpoint - and the guy in this photo had a pretty good one. It was a bright day, but freezing, and I contented myself with being on ground level round about the place de la Concorde and doing my best to feel the atmosphere and catch some photos. I liked Johnny, and have seen him in concert in Pau. But the French LOVE him. He was their idol. He was THE French Rock 'n' Roller. He was their youth. He was their hero. He's going to be missed by so many - young and old. And he's going to be missed by his family and friends. Merci Johnny! A phrase which has been projected onto the Eiffel Tower for 3 days. Quite a phenomenon, he was. More photos of this day will follow on my future 365 posts.
What a fabulous image Issi! Amazing to see the scenes on TV! How strange that someone so famous in France was hardly known in the UK! Fav for your wonderful capture!
Great street shot... During such events, what happen in the crowd is often much more interesting from a photography point of view that what they all look at! Fav!
Fantastic photo, Issi! I saw on the news that Johnny Hallyday passed away. I wasn’t familiar with his music until just the last couple of years, being introduced to it through his collaborations with Jean Jacques Goldman. Here is a YouTube link to one of their joint performances: https://youtu.be/tHRd7Vhj6dc
This reminds me of an image we might have seen in Life magazine, a photojournalists interpretation of the feelings and emotions of the day. It's really a wonderful way to convey the way people felt about him and the huge turnout.
@gaylewood Really enjoyed that clip of the three of them - so much younger then. Thank you! I knew Johnny and JJ were friends. Apparent JJ wrote the song ´Laura’ for Johnny - his daughter’s name. Another of my favourites.
Great street shot -and capture of this moment. He hit the news in the UK too, not so badly as in France, where someone from another internet board complained that all 16 French front pages featured his death
awesome shot. i watched part of it on tv. you could ad that between champs elysees concorde madeleine there were around 1 million people in the streets. and about 15 millions watched the funeral on tv.
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Allumez le feu!!