In July 2019 Citroën asked me for a single photograph of a classic DS parked beneath the Sydney Harbour Bridge. It was made for Sydney's Bastille Festival. That year the festival ran from the 11th to the 14th of July around Circular Quay and The Rocks, in the shadow of the bridge.
The brief came with a lovely piece of trivia: the DS was apparently Jacques Chirac's favourite car.
Two icons in one frame
The DS made its debut at the Paris Motor Show in 1955. By then the bridge had been carrying traffic across the harbour for twenty three years. I loved being a part of it: two icons in one frame, and only one of them was built in Paris.
In the finished photograph only the car keeps its colour. Its deep aubergine paint and the chrome along its flank sit against a black and white road, the palms and the steel of the arch overhead.
The rest of my commissioned work, from Vivid Sydney to Nikon's I AM campaign, is on the commissions page. Photographs of the same stretch of water are in the Sydney Harbour collection.
Richard Hirst has photographed Sydney's harbour, beaches and ocean pools for more than thirty five years. He is represented by YellowKorner. More about Richard.