Born near Le Havre in Normandy in 1990, Théo Gosselin grew up in the deserted streets of this grey city from the north of France. Passionate about drawing, music, and cinema, he chose a path through the art school, and graduated in 2012 as a graphic designer in Amiens. He started photography around 2007, and it Became his reason to live. He loves to capture the simple life, love, good and bad moments, his friends and his adventures. Eternal traveler, Europe and USA and share his way of life with the people He loves ; because the truth is in wide open spaces and in the heart of the characters that meet  along the way.

Gosselin’s photography reveals friends in the act of escaping from their regular lives into newly enticing and perilous modes of existence, ever in search of the persistent though elusive idea of freedom. His interest in cinema is reflected throughout his work with the cinematic style photographs he creates.

At times, Gosselin´s work approaches something similar
to poésie bucolique; his photographs representing modern day pastoral landscapes that resemble 21st century equivalents of Poussin’s Et in Arcadia ego, Manet’s Déjeuner sur L’herbe or Cézanne’s Les Grandes Baigneuses. At other times, his images capture moments more similar to, Rubens or Levêque.

The subjects in Théo Gosselin’s images are friends rather than models, and the situations are not mythic constructions but glimpses of an underground lifestyle in a post-9/11 and post-AIDS world in
which social media has blurred the boundaries between public and private, and between being documented and just being.

In august 2012, he made his first motion picture, “Goodbye Horses”, a road movie in which he is an actor with 4 friends. They bought a van and departed from New York in a van traversing the United States by 20 000 km from East to West to deliver a package in Los Angeles. An unprecedented adventure that changed the way they saw life and helped them explore themselves by discovering the beauty the American land has to offer. They were living the life of nomads in their van, they documented every moment on the road and shared many memorable moments, which created their special bond on a journey that they never expected.

Exploring various aspects of the American lifestyle, the youth, and the excitement of life on the road are some themes he covers in his work. The youthful style in which he entices his photographs towards representing an instagram-esque filter style, using warm temperatures and snapshot style straight shooting.

 

 

The reason behind this shoot was because it makes all of my photographs come together, as what I wanted to represent was some young adults on journey, exploring, taking in beautiful landscapes etc. Showing what they would do when away from home and away from the worries of typical every day life. Therefore I wanted to show a carefree youth. The van represents the literal movement between each place I’ve photographed, and show’s how relaxed they are on their journey as all they need is a bed, some books, and a camera to capture their moments. For my final outcome, i’m going to present it as a book, with all my favourite photographs to show the journey their vans have taken them on.

I choose this location as I wanted to show that the people I photographed would just pull up in a beautiful area and stay there for the night. Even though this is a fairly remote location, there were still other cars and people in the background, therefore we had to park the car so they wouldn’t be in the image. I also parked the car in the position which used the natural lighting to my advantage, as I originally was going to park it the other way so I could capture the sunset and the more scenic background, however because of the lighting I wouldn’t be able to get the natural lighting on the models face and show the little details which were important to the shoot.

The photographs below taken in black&white remind me of documentary photography, as they’re self explanatory and documentary photography generally relates to longer term projects which mine is meant to represent a group of my friends travelling.

I think these two photographs work really well together as it shows the movement of the model, and the composition is exactly the same, so it works nicely as a couple. The weather was perfect for the day as the wind made her hair blow and it made the photographs have more character.

The photograph below is shows the models surrounding and shows her looking directly at the camera. Therefore, because she’s looking at the camera it makes it feel as if she’s interacting with the person taking the photograph, and this makes the person who views the image feel as if they’re in that moment.

Referring back to the quote by Ted Grant, which I’ve analysed in my previous shoots; “When you photograph in colour you photograph their clothes. But when you photograph in B&W, you photograph their souls.” I think this quote is very true and important for the type of photographs I’m trying to capture, as I want my images to portray the basic life of a free soul.

For this photograph I was originally going to get the model to lie down surrounded by the pillows on the bed, however I noticed the lighting lying down wasn’t the best and there was a bit of natural lighting coming through the window so I made the model sit up against the back of the van, so i could capture the concentration on her face whilst reading the book.

I then left some of the images in colour, as the sun lit up the models her beautifully and made the images very colourful and therefore look playful.

Frequently in my shoots, I’ve captured the models hair blowing in the wind, an example is given below. This is due to the wind creating a carefree image. The natural lighting also captures the hair blowing and lights up half of her face and making her features stand out. I like the fact the model is not smiling in this photograph as it shows the images are purposely meant to look as if they’re not posed;

“photography is about capturing souls and not smiles.” Dragan Tapshanov.

The reason I believe this photograph works well is due to the composition of the photograph, because where the line of paint stops on the van it starts on the other side yet the line of the horizon.

For the images below I tried to capture it from a different perspective, and I took it up-close to create a more personal effect between the model and the viewer.

In the image below, one can see that it has had a filter added to it, like many of my photographs. This is done to add a certain feeling or aesthetic to the images;

“A lot of people in the art world hate to use the word Photoshop like it’s cheating or easy or something. I say bollocks to that. For me, it’s my tool, my paintbrush if you like, and lets me create my own visual language.” Idris Khan 

This shoot is really important, as the other shoots are more focused on a certain individual from the friendship group, and therefore this shoot show’s all the previous models together, except for the guy I took photo’s of and this is to make it feel as if he perhaps took the photos of the girls, and vise versa, they took the pics of him. Therefore that’s why there’s always someone missing in the adventures photographed, because it’s as if they were taking the photos. The girls from the swing, the girl playing the guitar, and the girl who went paddle boarding, altogether.

For this shoot, I choose this location as it’s one of the same places I shot the girl with the guitar, and it’s also remote and close to the sea. Which is similar to most of my shoots. Originally I was going to photograph them around the fire with the sunset in the background, however this didn’t work with the lighting because it would tend to make the photograph over exposed or underexposed, turning the people into silhouettes. Therefore I was pleased I shot images during this lighting.

The propping for this shoot was more difficult then expected, as the area which we did the bonfire was on the sand dunes so there was no wood for the fire. Therefore, before the shoot I had to collect the wood for it, however there wasn’t enough so we had to work with the dead marram grass, which would make the fire really big for a minute and then it would die down. In addition, we had to keep collecting lots of grass for the photographs to look good, the collecting of grass is shown in some of the images below.

The use of the models sunglasses makes the image more interesting, as one can see the fire reflected in the models lenses. Also the way the sun lights up the models hair makes it a very bright amber color, which works well with the fire in the foreground that looks as if it’s touching the models hair, who’s in the middle-ground. Therefore making the composition interesting.

In the image below, I tried to get the image to have the sunset in the background, but without allowing the people to become silhouettes. This was difficult as the sunset is over exposed, however i find it actually works in this image, as it creates an ambiance.

The image below relates to the quote;

“I always thought [my models] looked best when they were sitting in their pajamas smoking pot and getting pissed on a bottle of wine. So that’s what I documented. I liked the girls looking how they were naturally… ” Corinne Day 

The reason this quote links to the image, is because I’ve captured my models sitting around a bonfire and smoking, showing them in a natural manner and not posed. Also, these images documented the moment and not a posed image.

 

In the two images below I took them in a documentary style, the model not knowing they were being taken and capturing a moment/event, however they’ve ended up looking like fashion photography images, therefore making me think of the quote by Corinne Day;

“The best thing I did for fashion was bringing it down to earth, bringing a documentary quality to it.” Corinne Day 

I believe this is an important image from the shoot, as it’s very simple, and doesn’t have anybody’s faces giving away the emotions behind the scene. Therefore the viewer interprets the ambiance of the moment themselves.