You came up with a strong concept for this project. Can you explain it to us in a few words?

Elinchrom’s desire was to demonstrate the arrival of this new line of softboxes with a fashion shoot. Consequently, it was evident that the light would be the real subject. I had a real desire to portray “living light”, literally. For a long time, in the back of my mind, I’ve had the idea to make a series dealing with time, which is one of the basic components of the photographic act. I wanted to play with the path of the sun on a giant sundial.

It all makes sense: the light shapes the model who at the same time becomes an indicator of time.

During your shooting, what was your impression of the Indirect Litemotiv products?

Unfortunately I didn’t really had the time to analyze my feelings about the equipment during the shooting, everything went too fast.

That said, I was still able to appreciate the stability and the maneuverability of these softboxes. It was great to be able to use the Octa with precision at 6 m above the ground at the end of a platform. As for the light itself, I really appreciated the character of its brightness and the way it responded to the sunlight.

Describe your use of light, your approach.

Light fascinates me… Finding the model and the intensity that would be true to the soul of the project was clearly an integral part of the creative process. For me, light should sometimes graze and embrace the subject to emphasize her body, but sometimes also become flatter or more even, depending on the subject that you want to evoke. One original way of thinking about light that I love is Matthieu Gafsou’s "Sacred" series, which presents a clergyman on the ground. It’s as if he is being crushed by the (divine) light of the flash. It’s amazing! I am looking for shades and the relationship that can be established between light and subject. I should say that in general, I’m not a big fan of Speedlights ;-)

 

You’ve had the (bad) luck to have a completely sunny day without clouds and with scorching heat. How did the shooting go in these conditions?

Actually, I scheduled the shoot on the only day where I was certain it wouldn’t rain. But as it happened, the sunlight that was the subject of the project imposed itself brilliantly, as if to remind me what the shoot was about. I thus had to follow its rules on concave ground. To deal with the powerful light from the sun, the generators were almost always running at maximum capacity, which didn’t leave me very much flexibility. The equipment was really pushed to its limits.

The model and the people who helped me on the concave plate also gave their all, which was not easy. For my part, I came out with mild sunstroke, which still paralyzed me for the next 2 days.

 

What other surprises did you encounter during the day?

No real surprises, but some little challenges that added up to a great work cocktail. For example, getting out of my usual studio to shoot on a concave plate, or a schedule strictly confined to one day so that the stylist and model could return to Paris in time. Not to mention the relentless sun. You could say that I was clearly out of my comfort zone with this project. At the end everyone enjoyed it and we are very proud of the results.

 

The atmosphere is truly unique with a light that is very distinctive. How did you go about it technically?

I followed what the concept dictated: playing around with it, seeing myself struggle with the sun and the ground. The idea was to always have at least one Indirect Litemotiv as a key light to take the sun into account for shadow effects on the ground and reflections on the model. Sometimes I used 1 to 2 other flashes to lightly round everything out to retain the graphic aspect my compositions. The very specific framing also underlined this hyper-graphic aspect.

  "I was

  particularly

   impressed

   by the

 character of

 its light!"