Eric Guillemain Photographer

From stone singer to manner photographer is quite a journey, but when the consequence is a shoot with Vanessa Paradis for VS, nosotros reckon that it'due south all been worthwhile for Éric Guillemain.

In 2002, the Moroccan-built-in vocalizer left his Paris bookshop job, and the French rock band Venice, to try his luck every bit a musician in New York. He constitute work as a lensman's assistant, starting with absolute basics like changing lenses. He used his starting time camera to create the cover for his CD, and and so began taking it out onto the streets of New York.

By 2006, Guillemain was photographing models in his apartment, seeking a raw image with petty styling or make up. "I just wanted soul in daylight", he says. He called these portraits "Before Fashion", likening them to an acoustic musical performance. He and his subjects were strangers, then he was testing the chemistry between them.

As a teenager, Eric read Friedrich Nietzsche's "Zarathustra" and Antoine de St Exupery's "Wisdom of the Sands", and it seems to us that these books influence his work. He'south more interested in stories or improvisation than concepts, photographing what he sees, and preferring "touch" to "retouch", loving women for what they are, and not for what we want them to be.

By the end of the twelvemonth, he was working with Peter Lindbergh, but friends persuaded him to submit his experimental portraits to Surface Magazine. Being chosen as 1 of the winners of the 10th Avant Guardian competition led to calls from other magazines. and he found himself in what seemed to him at the time, "the pretty odd world of way".

He has worked for several well-known mode magazines, such as Faddy Nippon, Commonwealth of australia and Brazil, and Numero Magazine, photographing numerous models and actors like Lizzie Jagger, Abbey Lee Kershaw, Lou Doillon, Uma Thurman, Jamie Bell, Nick Cavern, and of course, Vanessa Paradis. He's discovered that actors are more insecure in front of the photographic camera than models, because they're used to a script, but Guillemain is drawn to directing them. He suggests that they permit their bodies speak the lines, just as he tries to make music with his camera.

He says that he'due south inspired by love, but acts spontaneously, trusting but the truth of the moment rather than any preconceived ideas, and post-obit his instincts. His advice is "Don't think. Merely shoot". He'south genuinely interested in his subjects, and and so builds a good rapport with them, without being besides intrusive. He believes that this empathy spreads, and produces a special kind of magic, which comes across to us in the pictures.

His approach to lighting is to utilize a couple of strobe lights for jewellery, mayhap, but to keep the effect soft. He prefers the gear up to expect natural, and not to exist overlit. He says: "A great photographer is able to shoot a 1000000 photos in a million means, but in the stop he chooses to just shoot one, and in some unique style".

Here at Simply The Blueprint believe that Éric Guillemain is that great lensman, and that he grasps that "unique way" every time, adding an artistic dimension to way photography.

Beautiful Barbara Palvin Photography By Eric Guillemain Vogue Australia September 2011 Dress By Marni