Thibaut de Saint Chamas is a Paris, France-based photographer. He discovered photography just before graduation at Sciences Po Paris and decided there to change course and quit a safe and predictable career for a precarious but creative life. After a stint in Vienna Austria, he joined the Ecole Nationale des Arts Décoratifs. Where he acquired a visual and artistic culture and learned the importance of cross-disciplinary inspiration.
This present personal work and new book publication is titled Et nous resterons quelques absents with Paris as a subtitle on the picture cover. For five years, de Saint Chamas has carried out a patient and systematic photographic study of Paris. While this work represents a snapshot of the city as it underwent major transformations in the run-up to the Olympic Games, its primary aim is to capture the exceptional atmosphere and spirit of places steeped in culture and history. Bringing iconic places into dialogue with less iconic ones, he recounts the moods and atmospheres of this city at a time when most are asleep.
His photos deal with the notions of the intimate, the road, the mystery, and the ‘unspectacular’ where the decor becomes the main character of a secretive and fictional play. He is also working on another long-term project on the forgotten villages of France that was presented during Les Rencontres de la Photographie d’Arles.
He started his career shooting portraits of anonymous and famous people. For magazines (Telerama, Madame Figaro, Lire) or personal projects, he aimed to bring out his models’ more impactful angles and attitudes. This experience proved invaluable when he started to shoot beauty and fashion in the 2000s for ELLE and Vogue Paris. When not shooting in Paris he also regularly shoots travel diaries in Burma, Syria, Baltic States, Norwegian North Cape, Nicaragua.
As comfortable with sophisticated studio shoots as with spontaneous on-the-go photography he was asked by ELLE USA to shoot backstage pictures during the fashion shows in a precise, yet, spontaneous way. This gave him the opportunity to meet numerous creative and talented artists and perfect his sense of beauty style and fashion. Thibaut opened his own studio in a heritage building in the Montorgueil district.
He works for various fashion brands such as Christian Dior, Giorgio Armani, YSL… for campaigns, editorial content, and trends decoding.
His pictures appear in Giorgio Armani (Rizzoli) Life under my skin (Diesel) Azzaro 50 ans d’éclat and Lolita Lempicka 20 ans de création, éditions Lamartinière, Mouna Ayoub parcours d’une collectionneuse, American Style (Assouline)
Website: http://desaintchamas.com
Book: Paris (release Nov 5, 2024 Editions Odyssée)
Social Media: ig desaintchamas
Patricia Lanza: How did you come to decide to do the project and work on PARIS?
Thibaut de Saint Chamas : As I had to catch some early flights or trains in the morning I had to cross the city very early and have always been struck by its atmosphere and calmness that contrasts starkly with the daytime vibes.
Paris is a complicated topic. It is beautiful and as such has been heavily photographed. My purpose was not to celebrate one more time its beauty. I wanted to explore what is beyond that. I was more interested in its fictional side its atmosphere that can change dramatically from one moment of the day to the other. I also wanted to explore the thin frontier between what sounds familiar and what becomes surreal when more attention is paid.
Thus from one block to another, I started to explore the city during this elusive and fragile moment when everyone is sleeping. Regularly, over and over with different weather and light conditions.
Describe your process for shooting the city and choices for locations?
Thibaut de Saint Chamas : Paris is a mix of different villages with invisible borders from one street to another. As you pass a street or a crossroad you enter a different style of architecture, stories, and ambiance. I proceeded at a much slower pace than the one we ordinarily walk during the daytime. The photographic process itself was very slow with careful attention paid to the composition, the angle of view, and the balance of what is shown inside the picture and what is suggested outside. My purpose was not to document the city (even if it testifies to a certain moment of its long history, its architecture, and urbanism). My purpose was to show the decor as the main character of a theater play in which the passing of time, the mystery of the ordinary, and the absence share the main roles. Melancholy, too, as long as it is defined as the happiness of being sad.
It is more the mingling of buildings that attracted me than the buildings itself. As with people, the way buildings and the surroundings interact with each other creates some charm and attraction and says a lot. It also brings out a certain visual vocabulary that is inseparable from Paris: its skyline, perspective, and sense of wide-open spaces. On the opposite side, small details and ‘accidents’ play an important role. Like in the Japanese wabi sabi, the elusive beauty of the imperfection, they are welcome and necessary. They convey the feeling of being embedded in the present time and real life. Construction site fences, billboards, a parked car, the time that left its mark on a decayed wall, or papers lying around on sidewalks might be felt as derisory when related to the eternal beauty of the city. But they are decisive in building this beauty and welcome for their capacity to bring life, suggesting the remains of the day and conveying today’s aesthetics. For the same reason, I made no distinction between the iconic places and the vernacular. They need each other. As long as they relate to stories and moments of life.
Your work is devoid of people giving the work a timeless atmosphere, how did you arrive at this approach?
Thibaut de Saint Chamas : Due to the time of the day, most of my pictures are devoid of humans. At close examination though, some appear in certain pictures. As with the ‘accidents’ I wanted this tension between the ‘big picture’ and the pixel, the small detail. With a two-time reading a quick one and a slow one. Humans appear as an echo of the past day or the promise of the next one. They look overwhelmed by the grandeur of the city, elusive as are our destinies when considered at a historical scale. But at the same time, they make what that city is: a crossroad of destinies. The absence of humans helps to focus on the decor and gives this feeling that the city is ours. An exhilarating feeling of an in-between moment when the past is gone and the future has not happened yet and when everything is possible.
As I shot, I had in mind the atmospheres of Nouvelle Vague movies or Michelangelo Antonioni’s movies such as La Notte but also the surreal or meditative atmospheres of Giorgio De Chirico or René Magritte. Some pictures also echo the surrealist Pope Andre Breton and his iconic novel Nadja, which is about the encounter of a mysterious woman called Nadja in a surreal Paris.
Give the details on the publication dates and information. What are you looking to do with this work beyond the book publication?
Thibaut de Saint Chamas : Et nous restons quelques absents. Editions Odyssée. Regular edition available from November 5 plus Collector’s edition of signed copies plus a fine art print numbered from 1 to 40 (4 set of 10).
Text & Interview by Patricia Lanza
Thibaut de Saint Chamas : Et nous restons quelques absents – Paris
Editions Odyssée
https://www.editionsodyssee.com/paris
