For the night lighting on the Eiffel tower, this law is talking specifically about 'commissioned' work, where an artist is hired by someone else to take a photo. Normally the commissioner is granted unrestricted use of an image, but the copyright remains with the photographer. Before this law, another law must have made the copyright default to the person or body that commissioned the work.

For your second question, it was always the photographer. You gave them permission to take a photo of you (by word of mouth, or being in public). You never commissioned then, so the previous law doesn't apply. The eiffel tower is different because the owner of the work only grants the rights to take photos if the photographer agrees to a contract to their terms (I'm not too familiar with them).

A month ago I was walking around (not in Canada, but for the sake of argument, let's say it was) taking pictures when a gentleman called me over and asked if I would take a picture of him and his wife (technically, a commission) with his camera.

Now, who owns the picture I took?

You own the picture. The gentleman didn't pay you - a request is not a commission nor a work for hire. Some concrete renumeration must occur.

The Eiffel Tower is in France, not Canada. French copyright laws don't apply in Canada. Afaik, we don't have any provision in Canadian copyright law that allows the subject of a photo to claim ownership over that photo, regardless of whether that photo is a person or a copyrighted work.

> who owns a photo of person? the photographer or the person himself?

The photographer.