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Bridging Tech and Creative Photography
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Bridging Tech and Creative Photography
Photography Culture

Thierry Le Gouès Believes Modern Photography is a Mess

Chris Gampat
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05/16/2023
3 Mins read
NEXT531

“When I look at magazines now, I see that the new generation of photographers has no style at all, I guess magazines don’t have art directors anymore,” says photographer Thierry Le Gouès to the Phoblographer in an interview. “In the 90‘s I had the chance to work for Conde Nast group, they send me all over the world to shoot fashion stories. They gave me so much freedom to develop my style; I was shooting a lot in black and white at the time; we had no mood board we had to create our own style.” Shocking as it may seem to some, Thierry speaks from the heart about the work that he’s done over the years — and he has the portfolio to back him up. In fact, a new book of his profiles many of his iconic images.

All images by Thierry Le Gouès. Used with permission. Check out his website. To purchase the book, head over to Powerhouse Books. This interview has been modified slightly for grammatical corrections.

Table of Contents

  • How Thierry Le Gouès Got into Photography
  • On His Work
  • About AI

How Thierry Le Gouès Got into Photography

Thierry got into photography at a very young age. In fact, the story of how he did is a pretty straightforward one. “I first got into photography at the age of 13, I won my first camera at a scooter race,” he tells us. The camera was a Kodak Instamatic. With that the hunger to shoot photos continued to be satiated by him. These days though, he shoots both film and digital. He switches between a Hasselblad 500 series camera when he’s in a studio or on a location. He pairs this with either film or digital backs. But when he shoots digital, he’s using a Canon 5D Mk IV.

He’s used these cameras on various projects of his. When asked about some of his favorite projects, Thierry references some of his books. The book Soul is dedicated to black female models and contains various artistic nudes shot in a studio. He even calls it an iconic book. Another book, Popular, was done when he spent three years in Havana.

Thierry tells us that a lot of his best images happen because of happy accidents.

On His Work

Thierry Le Gouès has shot a bunch of iconic images that you’ve seen over the years. If you grew up in the 90s, you’ll recognize many of his images. The ideas are things that have given way to influencing various other photographers over the years. Part of what makes his work so unique too are the trends that happened in the 90s. There’s a holistic je ne sais quoi about the photos that screams about things like experimentation, shock value, and cross-processing with vivid colors that we’d seen in music videos and images alike.

About AI

Of course, a photographer like Thierry Le Gouès that didn’t use mood boards has thoughts about AI imagery. Specifically, he’s not interested in them. “…there is nothing like the creativity or emotion between a model and a photographer that can compete with a computer, the work on lighting, composition, complicity with your model…” he states. He strongly believes that a computer cannot give you happy accidents and surprises that bring a smile to your face. For him, that’s part of the magic of photography.

However, he thinks that AI imagery could be good for eCommerce. But still, photography to him is all about the process of making the great photos he has.

90s AI imagery conde nast images Photography powerhouse book Thierry Le Gouès
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Chris Gampat

Chris Gampat is the Editor in Chief, Founder, and Publisher of the Phoblographer. He provides oversight to all of the daily tasks, including editorial, administrative, and advertising work. Chris's editorial work includes not only editing and scheduling articles but also writing them himself. He's the author of various product guides, educational pieces, product reviews, and interviews with photographers. He's fascinated by how photographers create, considering the fact that he's legally blind./ HIGHLIGHTS: Chris used to work in Men's lifestyle and tech. He's a veteran technology writer, editor, and reviewer with more than 15 years experience. He's also a Photographer that has had his share of bylines and viral projects like "Secret Order of the Slice." PAST BYLINES: Gear Patrol, PC Mag, Geek.com, Digital Photo Pro, Resource Magazine, Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Finance, IGN, PDN, and others. EXPERIENCE: Chris Gampat began working in tech and art journalism both in 2008. He started at PCMag, Magnum Photos, and Geek.com. He founded the Phoblographer in 2009 after working at places like PDN and Photography Bay. He left his day job as the Social Media Content Developer at B&H Photo in the early 2010s. Since then, he's evolved as a publisher using AI ethically, coming up with ethical ways to bring in affiliate income, and preaching the word of diversity in the photo industry. His background and work has spread to non-profits like American Photographic Arts where he's done work to get photographers various benefits. His skills are in SEO, app development, content planning, ethics management, photography, Wordpress, and other things. EDUCATION: Chris graduated Magna Cum Laude from Adelphi University with a degree in Communications in Journalism in 2009. Since then, he's learned and adapted to various things in the fields of social media, SEO, app development, e-commerce development, HTML, etc. FAVORITE SUBJECT TO PHOTOGRAPH: Chris enjoys creating conceptual work that makes people stare at his photos. But he doesn't get to do much of this because of the high demand of photography content. / BEST PHOTOGRAPHY TIP: Don't do it in post-production when you can do it in-camera.
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