Theo Gosselin is a French photographer. He is mostly famous for his bohemian pictures taken during different road-trips around the world.  Deliberately cinematic, his 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.

Theo Gosselin pictures, like Justine Kurland, are a true homage to freedom, captured like a snapshot. His favourite themes are life, love, his generation, his adventures, and large spaces; in definition a youth thirsted for freedom and an alternative living, where human values and harmony with nature dominate.

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 chose to pursue and develop this. He loves to capture the simple life, love, good and bad moments, his friends and his adventures. Gosselin is an eternal traveller and shares his way of life with the people he loves; because the truth is in wide open spaces and in the heart of the characters he meets along the way.

His work is simple but heart-breaking, pictures which speak the language of feelings and true emotions. Without artifices or lies, the young photographer captures the intimacy with tenderness and accompanies to adulthood.

This image is a good example of photos I want to be taking. The focal point of this image is the two people, however the viewers eyes are drawn to their surroundings. It looks like they are in a service area restaurant and it makes you wonder what their story is, are they runaways? Are they on their own adventure? Are they lost? I want my images to create this kind of atmosphere.

Rut Blees Luxemburg

Rut Blees Luxemburg is a German photographer who mainly takes photographs during the night of urban areas in cities and urban areas, where she likes to use long exposed images because of the lighting she can get from the streets. She is influenced a lot by cities, without considering the noise and chaos, she sees it as flexible, where anything can happen and be photographed, where the pace of life slows down, and the city lights up, where there is as much space as you could possibly want. She grew up in the country side which she says, “Your future is mapped out for you from the very beginning”, which shows her influence for the mix of urban and street photography Rut uses. People believe that Rut Bless Luxemburg is separated from most photographers because of her ability to find beauty in the most depressing and unlikely places, where she creates an ominous mysterious look in her images.

Rut Blees images create a lot of mystery and during her night photography include no people, but rather the template for where people are, which is why you can see footprints in the water and mud, it shows the presence of people without directly showing them and even going into personalities. She looks at the bigger picture, of where people live and where, and how we live in a broader picture. The area she has chosen for her images (London) is perfect for what she is aiming for, because of how although it gets silent at night, there is still perfect lighting everywhere and things still happening or areas that have been left for the night to take over, which she chooses to image.

I personally like Rut’s work, especially her urban and street because of the aesthetic it gives off with an abandoned look and deterioration and isolation. I also like how she mentions about her photography in her urban night area aiming more towards showing the template for people in society and what we use to travel and be efficient in every day life which we might not pay attention to. Her images use a lot of contrast especially with her use of warm and cold colours which I like because the specific tints and vibrancy she uses work well.

Nostalgia

Possible Themes:

• Isolation – focusing on grandma living alone in Ireland.
• Childhood – anxiety – growing up and my approach to identity.
• Family – could focus on dad or brother.??
• Tradition – Baking?/food -mother connection through it, old written recipe book – Laura Letinski’s work
• homesickness + belonging

photomanipulation – interesting looking images that feel a bit more personal – stitching, paint, writing, – if based on family could add letters.

Carolle Benitha

Francesca Woodman

Laura Letinski- I really like the aesthetic values of her work calm and slightly clinical.

Who

My dad’s side of the family who live in Madeira, as well as my immediate family.

What

I want to take photographs of familiar landscapes from trips when I was younger, like family homes for example. I’ll also capture pictures of family, street photography, environmental portraits, etc in a documentary-type style.

Where

I’ll be staying at my grandparents’ house in Câmara de Lobos, Madeira as well as exploring other areas of Madeira.

When

Over the Christmas holidays.

How

I will be borrowing a camera from school, so that I can successfully capture some good-quality photographs during my trip.

Why

I want to gather a collection of meaningful photographs while in Madeira for my personal study. My focus is around my childhood and upbringing, while also acknowledging my heritage. I want to do this as I believe this will communicate a sense of self and allow me to explore and piece together aspects of my ancestry unfamiliar to me.

Deliberately cinematic, 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.

Born near Le Havre in Normandy in 1990, Théo Gosselin grew up with the sea, the wind, the forest, and the sound of electric guitars, echoing 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.

This image shows how groups of friends escape the reality of their regular lives.

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 simply being. 

About

These are archival images taken from family albums. Majority of the old images will be edited into black and white on Lightroom in order to showcase the fact that they are older than the newer images.

Images

Edits

Mike Brodie, an American photographer also known by the moniker of “Polaroid Kidd, is notable for his imagery following his own experiences of trainhopping across North America in a period of five years, dating from 2004 to 2009. Inspired by punk ideologies and the photographs of National Geographic photographer Steve McCurry, Brodie set out to create images of those around him and they experiences they shared together, presenting them in a way that feels raw and intimate; something that comes as a side effect from a lack of formal education in photographic composition and technique.

Brodie’s photographs encapsulate a powerful sense of youth and freedom that represents his outlook on both life and the others around him at the time of shooting. Take this image, for example; a young man holding onto the railing on the back of a fast-moving train giving the middle finger to the camera, with a confident expression on his face. Compositionally, the man is the focal point of the photograph, filling up a small section of the bottom half in the image, directly in the centre. Aside from him, the only other section of the piece in focus is the railing he dangles from, whereas the rest of the image is blurred from the fast motion of the train. Despite this, the track can be made out behind him and acts as leading lines to bring the viewer’s eyes away from the man and toward the rest of the composition. The expressions and gestures provided by the man represent the rebellious behaviours of youth culture, and their mutual desire to be free of the constraints of societal expectations through one way or another, living off the grid and on their own terms. Additionally, the colour palette of the photograph primarily utilises yellow and grey tones, the mans pink details on his shirt being the only differentiation.

In my own work, I want to represent the rawness of wanting to stray from the norms enforced by modern society, and the idea of forging my own path as opposed to a more typical career and lifestyle. I feel similar values appear in both my own and Brodie’s photographs, and I’d like mine to capture these emotions even better through the influence of his style.

Sources:

https://www.nowness.com/story/mike-brodie-a-period-of-juvenile-prosperity

https://www.mbphoto.com/artists/45-mike-brodie/biography/

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/photo-booth/mike-brodies-a-period-of-juvenile-prosperity#:~:text=His%20images—of%20trains%20with,TBW%20Books%2C%20on%20March%201st.

photoshoot 1:

Eugène Atget shoot-

what: For my first shoot I am going to base it off of Eugene Atget’s work with the theme of old and historical architecture. Once I have collected a set of images I am going to edit them to try and create the same effect on my images that Atget has on his.

when: I am going to take this shoot maybe an hour or so before sunset so that my images have a gloomy effect and they turn out more dull that taking my images in the middle of the day. I want an effect that adds to my image and make it more alike Atget’s as all of his images were taken in monochrome with an old effect to them which I want to try and recreate.

where: For this shoot I am going to go all over the island to find building that are similar to Atget’s. This shoot won’t be my only one on old architecture so I wont worry too much about photographing every old building but just the ones that are similar to Atget’s.

why: I have chosen to do this as my first shoot as I wat my project to start in this place as I want to show the evolution of architecture so I think starting at older building is a good place to begin.

how: For this shoot and most of my other shoots I am going to use a digital camera and for some images I may use a tripod to ensure that my images are straight and are focused/steady to produce a good quality image.

photoshoot 2:

east side of the island-

what: For my second shoot I am going to focus it on buildings located on the east side of the island as that is where I live. This may include buildings that I have a connection to or ones that show how architecture has changed.

when: For this shoot I will take my images at around noon so that there is good lighting and it makes the building be the main focus point and is clear.

where: As this shoot is based on the east side of the island I am going to focus on architecture in St Cements, Grouville, St Martins and maybe St Saviours.

why: As I live in the East side of the Island I think that this would be a good place to start as I know the area well as also have connections to some of the buildings in this area.

photoshoot 3:

Ezra Stoller shoot-

what: For my third photo shoot I am going to base it off of Ezra Stoller as his work captures modern architecture which is what part of my personal study is based on. His work includes lots of lines and symmetry so that it what I am going to try and find to capture in this particular photoshoot.

when: I think for this shoot it will look better in day light at noon so that my images are clear and the focus will be on the buildings as opposed to having duller lighting as I don’t think that it would add much to my image.

where: Similar to my shoot inspired by Atget, I am going to start on the East side of the Island but also focus on the style of the buildings to replicate Stoller’s as I will do other modern shoot to add to my study.

why: I have chosen to do this as my third shoot so that I have a beginning and an end with the old and modern buildings. I think that this will help me to realize what kind of images I need more of to develop my project.