Fab Rideti : Capture The Invisible
Fab Rideti is a photographer and visual artist whose work explores the boundaries between reality and fiction, between photography and visual arts. Her approach is marked by meticulous staging, careful attention to light and detail, and a rare ability to transform the everyday into images charged with tension and emotion.
As part of the 16th Biennale of Issy, she presented her universe in the exhibition “L’eau intranquille”(Troubled water), where her images engage with the theme of water and fluidity. Her photographs explore human fragility and resilience, playing on suggestion, imagination, and the narrative power of images. Every element pose, costume, set, and lighting is designed like a visual choreography, revealing the theatrical and sculptural dimension of her work.
Her series, such as Naphta Tribes and Impermanence, showcase her ability to construct coherent and sensitive worlds, where the viewer’s gaze is both challenged and enchanted. Empathetic and attentive to the subtleties of the human gaze, Fab Rideti seeks to capture what often escapes notice, to reveal beauty in what wavers, and to create images that linger in memory long beyond the photographic instant.
Website: www.fabrideti.com
Instagram: @fab.rideti
News: Fab Rideti is participating in the exhibition “L’eau intranquille” as part of the 16th Biennale of Issy until November 9, 2025.
Your first photographic spark?
Fab Rideti: The portrait I took of a homeless woman, with childlike blue eyes of infinite purity, at the very beginning of my career… She later confessed that this shoot had changed her life, that it had motivated her to take control of her life again. That day, I understood the impact of being seen, the power of photography.
The image-maker, man or woman, who inspires you?
Fab Rideti: Erwin Olaf, for his sense of detail, elegance, direction of actors, and the way he transforms beauty into dramatic tension. He composes like a film director, playing with colors in a masterful way.
An image you wish you had created?
Fab Rideti: Ophelia by Gregory Crewdson. Because it’s frozen cinema, pure storytelling. My absolute dream. I admire the way he directs light like a conductor, choreographing the ordinary to make it moving.
The image that moved you the most?
Fab Rideti: There are so many… Perhaps my first studio portrait of my teenage daughter. Her gaze, mixing purity, strength, rage, confidence, and doubt, touches me every time.
The image that made you angry?
Fab Rideti: Any photo that betrays those trapped in it involuntarily.
A key image in your personal pantheon?
Fab Rideti: A beautiful posed portrait of my grandmother with my mother as a child, in a Harcourt style. Elegant pose, soft light, oval frame perfect. It inspired the poses of the noble warriors in my Naphta Tribes series.
A photographic memory from your childhood?
Fab Rideti: A box of old postcards found in the attic, with hundreds of recolored photos from 1900: women and children in “costumes,” posed in front of painted backdrops… with illuminations and bunches of flowers.
The image that obsesses you?
Fab Rideti: The one I haven’t created yet. I feel it, I sense it. The first image of my next series. It still eludes me… It will come when it’s ready—or when I am.
The image that changed the world?
Fab Rideti: The photo of Aylan Kurdi, the three-year-old Syrian child found dead on a beach in Bodrum, Turkey. Because sometimes an image does more than bear witness: it forces people to look.
The image that changed your world?
Fab Rideti: The first photo of my Impermanence series, where I designed everything: set, costume, light. The moment I realized how I wanted to express myself through photography—between painting, visual arts, and theater. That’s when I became, I believe, as much a visual artist as a photographer.
If budget were no object, which work would you dream of acquiring?
Fab Rideti: A photograph by Erwin Olaf.
In your opinion, what quality is necessary to be a good photographer?
Fab Rideti: Empathy understanding in another person what is most powerful or most fragile, even if they are unaware of it. But also seeing the world with awareness of the role we play in it.
The secret to a perfect image, if it exists?
Fab Rideti: To feel both control and accident in it.
The person you would like to photograph?
Fab Rideti: Ariane Mnouchkine, whose engaged gaze awakens consciousness. Her abundant performances inspired my love for theater.
The person you would like to be photographed by?
Fab Rideti: Cindy Sherman. I admire her freedom of reinvention, her sharp humor, and the way she embodies the gaze rather than submitting to it. I would love to see how she would reinvent me.
An indispensable photography book?
Fab Rideti: Twilight by Gregory Crewdson. Each image is a puzzle, a suspended narrative fragment.
The camera of your childhood?
Fab Rideti: A Minolta X700 film camera I received for my 18th birthday. Nothing exceptional, but it taught me to look, frame, and decide what I wanted to show.
The camera you use today?
Fab Rideti: A Nikon D850.
Your favorite “drug”?
Fab Rideti: Chiaroscuro. That shifting boundary between beauty and strangeness.
The best way to disconnect for you?
Fab Rideti: Creating with my hands. Losing myself in material: sewing a costume, painting a canvas, shaping clay. Manual work brings me back to the concrete, to the present moment.
Your relationship with images?
Fab Rideti: They exist first to convey a message or tell a story. Only then do I try to make them a beautiful visual object to engage as many people as possible.
Your greatest quality?
Fab Rideti: Finding beauty in what wavers. And never stopping believing in it.
Your latest folly?
Fab Rideti: Going alone deep into a snowy forest with three bags of equipment, my flashes, a giant cardboard wizard costume, to be at the same time model, lighting assistant, dresser, and photographer… and realizing after 40 minutes of walking that I had forgotten… the tripod.
An image to illustrate a new banknote?
Fab Rideti: A smile. Because “Rideti”—my artist name—means “smile” in Esperanto. And it is a universal value.
The work you would least like to do?
Fab Rideti: Paparazzi.
Your greatest professional extravagance?
Fab Rideti: Building a full-scale cabin alone in the forest from dozens of recycled cardboard boxes. Some make films, I build my images one by one, with the same stubbornness.
Can photography change collective perception of an event or era?
Fab Rideti: Absolutely. An image can shake people more than an hour-long speech.
How do you perceive the influence of social media on how photographs are created and perceived today?
Fab Rideti: Social media has democratized photography which is wonderful but it has also shortened the lifespan of emotions. We scroll where we should contemplate. Fortunately, a strong image resists everything, even algorithms.
An Instagram account to follow?
Fab Rideti: @fondationtaraocean, because there is still time to save the oceans.
The last thing you did for the first time?
Fab Rideti: Trying to follow an Alto part during my first choir session ten days ago.
What makes a successful photograph?
Fab Rideti: One that haunts you. That disturbs or soothes, but is unforgettable.
What interests you most in an image?
Fab Rideti: The unspoken. What we sense behind a smile, the light… the story you can finish yourself.
Difference between photography and art photography?
Fab Rideti: Photography captures; art photography constructs. One seizes reality, the other magnifies it.
A city, country, or culture you dream of discovering?
Fab Rideti: I’ve been around the world twice… and I’ve never been to Berlin! It’s high time.
A place you never tire of?
Fab Rideti: My husband’s neck.
Your greatest regret?
Fab Rideti: I don’t have many regrets, mostly desires…
Color or black & white?
Fab Rideti: Color, without hesitation.
Daylight or artificial light?
Fab Rideti: Artificial light, especially outdoors, like in my Naphta Tribes series. Because it says, “this is not what you think…”
The most photogenic city, in your opinion?
Fab Rideti: Havana. The scenery is already worn, the light is nostalgic, and every wall seems ready to speak.
If God existed, would you ask Him to pose for you, or take a selfie with Him?
Fab Rideti: I’d ask Him to adjust the flash. Apparently, He has some experience with light.
If I could organize your ideal dinner, who would be at the table?
Fab Rideti: Pierre Rabhi for wisdom, Laurent Gaudé for words, Shakespeare for the story, Camille for emotion, and… Blanche Gardin to keep the debate grounded.
The image that represents the current state of the world?
Fab Rideti: A seed, because there is always something left to invent.
If you had to start all over again?
Fab Rideti: I’d do the same, but I wouldn’t give up the piano at 15.
Final word?
Fab Rideti: Smile, always. It’s my way of resisting the gravity of the world.
