MEET THE ARTIST - EMMANUELLE HAUGUEL - PHOTOGRAPHER'S EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW

" It’s a quest for Beauty, a treasure hunt. It’s about finding the right angle, dancing with light and the model’s energy. It’s both physical and magical." 

Do you remember the moment photography became an obvious medium of expression?

 When I was a little girl, I was already drawn by images. I was collecting Cacharel ads, with Sarah Moon images, David Hamilton….I was making a lot of collages, visiting a lot of museums….Later, I was fascinated by Edward Weston pictures, by Steiglitz, Tina Modotti, Dorothea Lange, August Sander, Helmut Newton or Guy Bourdin. I made the one and only family camera mine while we were traveling in Egypt. Nobody had the right to touch it since then!! I was 12.

How are you feeling when you are shooting? What kind of emotion is running through you?

 It’s a quest for Beauty, a treasure hunt. It’s about finding the right angle, dancing with light and the model’s energy. It’s both physical and magical.

When I look at your work, I feel softness and a wish to take care of the model (I am thinking of the veils or of the created visual effects on the skin), can you talk to me about this? Is this a way of expressing what is intimate, emotional?

I love my images to be softly sensual and light at the same time, I love “gourmandise” (add fruits, flowers…) and simplicity, not anecdotic sets; the veil in front of my model allows to drift away in order to not speak about one woman only, but of women in general, and create a pictural sensation.

Are you thinking of yourself as a feminist photographer?

 Yes, I love to “pay tribute” to women by making them as beautiful as possible. I don’t like photographers who “damage” women by shooting them in a vulgar way, as if they were objects; some male photographers can have that same sensitivity.

What is the central message, the skeleton of your work?

 Timelessness.

Do you recall the very first moment spent with Marie, how things evolved from then, and what you loved about the Selects Gallery concept?

 I met Marie through a work collaboration (a L’Oreal shoot). Spontaneously and intuitively, we became friends. Knowing her sensitivity , I believed in her online gallery project right away; I find it refreshing to be able to exhibit and share images with others, make Beauty come into our daily lives and everywhere else possible!

If you had not become a photographer, would you have expressed yourself through another medium, or would you have done something totally different?

 I am very lucky to have found photography as a way of expressing myself. It’s a necessity for me to make images, it’s a drug. Film is also an attractive topic for me, like a natural evolution.

What are you working on at the moment? Are you dreaming of accomplishing something that you are not talking about but would be happy to share with us?

 I have the feeling I am a bulimic that never stops making images, always on the move; I hope that one day, I can launch a book that would gather my most beautiful, timeless images.

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