For the past 21 weeks, the photographer Romain Laurent has posted one animated gif per week on his blog. The absurd, dreamlike situations are true to the photographer’s style. Based in New York, he splits his time between personal and commercial work. But over the past several weeks, his animated gifs have gone viral.
Molly Benn: How did you start out making gifs?
Romain Laurent: For a long time I’ve been interested in still images with moving parts. I wanted to start experimenting with the concept. I also wanted to rediscover the energy I had when I started out as a photographer. At the time, I was creating without worrying about concept or the series. I wasn’t working under pressure. Today my personal work is extremely well considered and takes a long time, just like my work in advertising. I really wanted to get back to the testing ground, so I gave myself a mission: make one animated gif every week for a year.
I decided to post the images on Tumblr, the best platform for sharing animated gifs. It takes an hour to shoot, then I retouch and upload it to the internet. What’s interesting with a blog is that you can post a picture and not worry about what happens to it afterwards. They have lives of their own and spread themselves.
M.B: You often sketch out your photographs before you shoot. Do you do the same for your animated gifs?
R.L: Not necessarily. I create these pictures with whatever I have at hand. I don’t really think about them beforehand. They’re inspired by the humor and context of the moment.
M.B: So these gifs are almost like a journal.
R.L: Yes.
M.B: Have these gifs helped you evolve as a photographer?
RL: Setting a challenge for myself has allowed me to consider my photographic work more broadly. Before, I would meticulously control every element of my shoot. Today, it’s still the case, but I’m less afraid of mistakes, the unknown and chance. The technique of the gif hasn’t help me evolve, but it reminded me that a lot of things can result from error. Among the images I’ve posted, some of them are not at all the way I planned them, but they turned out for the better. In photography and video, I think it’s very important to leave room for error.
Sometimes I see I could have done something better, but I don’t realize it until post-production. Even if the photograph isn’t perfect, I always force myself to put it online. For example, there’s an image of a woman with smoke coming out of her face. The smoke was produced with drops of paint falling in water. I should have shot that against a green screen. But I forced myself to finish and post it anyway. And it’s proved to be the most popular one.
Read the full interview on the French version of L’Oeil
http://www.romain-laurent.com
Interview published first on http://www.ourageis13.com
