Cut and Paste: Damien Blottiere's hand-made photographs
Image © Damien Blottiere.
His collaged assemblies are in hot demand in the fashion industry, and yet Damien Blottiere doesn’t think of himself as a photographer so much as an imagemaker within a team.
Author: Diane Smyth
“I have an unusual background,” admits Damien Blottiere, whose “hand-made” imagery for brands such as Stella McCartney and Pierre Hardy have caught the eye of the fashion cognoscenti. “I would say that fashion brings me to photography, not the other way round,” he says, referencing his early career as an aspiring designer.
The Frenchman studied fashion design at the École Duperré in Paris, then assisted fashion editor Yasmine Eslami, working on titles such as Purple, Libération Style and Mixte, before a step up to styling in his own right led him in another direction. Although he had been cutting up images and taking his own photographs since college, it was Cathy Edwards, the former fashion editor at Dazed & Confused, who spotted his potential and gave him his first commission.
Blottiere still shoots for the magazine, alongside other titles such as Tokyo-based biannual, Commons & Sense Man (who commissioned him to do the shoot shown here), and having signed up with the prestigious Artlist agency, he’s taking on more advertising commissions for fashion brands such as Hermès and Carven. But for all this, Blottiere considers himself an imagemaker or collagist rather than a photographer, even though he shoots all the work he cuts up, and says he relishes this part of the process. “What I like the most about fashion photography is working with a team,” he explains. “I always feel grateful when a team of other artists joins me to do something. Everyone comes with his or her own talent for a common project – I don’t know so much about hair and make-up, I’m not a stylist and I’m not a model. Without them, fashion photography doesn’t exist. They feed me their creativity in a way.”
This team effort means Blottiere is often “surprised by unexpected things that others can create during the shoot”, and he says he’s always open to others’ ideas, even if he’s got a plan in mind. He needs to be alone to “let his hands do the work” on his collages though, although he will sometimes let others in on the development. He used to be inspired by his own fantasies, but these days he’s more interested in his subjects. “I’ve always been fascinated by bodies and I try to go underneath as well as around them,” he says. “I try to combine imagines of different times, perceptions or points of view. For example, on one picture I will show my subject dressed, getting dressed and naked, all at the same time. I’m probably greedy and unsatisfiable so I need to gather different parts or moments to show what my subject wants me to tell or what I want him to say.”
Visit http://www.artlistparis.com/.
Image © Damien Blottiere.
Image © Damien Blottiere.
Read more: http://www.bjp-online.com/british-journal-of-photography/project/2107257/cut-paste-damien-blottieres-hand-photographs#ixzz1yKSPtue8
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