Paolo Battistel and Anaïs S., our readers picks #270 both like to experiment with the photographic medium. Two complementary visions, between abstraction and poetry.
Paolo Battistel
Paolo Battistel, a 26-year-old photographer born in Paris, has studied the medium at the Gobelins school. “Before turning to photography I was really interested in music, cinema and painting. I practiced graffiti for several years in the streets of Paris”, he adds. At university – where he studied art history and archeology – the young man got interested in what an image truly was. “I quickly noticed how art historians sometimes take liberties in analysing a work, he tells us. It was fascinating to imagine that each image could be interpreted in an infinite number of ways depending on who looks at it.” Favouring a thoughtful and controlled approach, the artist never goes out with his camera hoping to capture the unexpected. “I shoot a portrait as I do a still life. I give priority to shapes and light and try to go straight to the point: subtle composition and, hopefully, a tiny bit of elegance” he says. Experimenting with colour and monochrome, the artist blurs the boundaries between realism and abstraction, thus creating a fascinating, timeless and hypnotic universe.
© Paolo Battistel
Anaïs S.
“My approach to photography is open and experimental. I play with different tools – digital, analogue, photogrammetry, disposable cameras, smartphone… – to transform my own gaze. The way the camera changes our perception fascinates me and feeds my thinking process”
, Anaïs S., 19, tells us. Currently a student in artistic preparatory class, the young woman discovered photography when she was a child, and quickly became fond of it. “At 15, it had become a daily practice. I started with self-portraits, and then my experimental field opened to other situations”, she says. Inspired by the work of American photographer Sally Mann and her own environment, she likes to rediscover the places around her and re enchant everyday life. “To me, capturing the street is like letting yourself be surprised by strange details, fragments, reflections… I love instantaneity, and the idea to make fleeting moments last longer”, she explains. A poetic and nostalgic collection.
© Anaïs S.
Cover picture: © Paolo Battistel
