Interview with Raoul Gatepin

Introduction

It’s worth mentioning how I found out about Raoul.   On separate occasions a number of amazing photographers named Raoul as someone to watch.   They spoke of him with deep respect. They spoke of him with passion. They alluded to his being humble.  It was clear that they not only saw him as a great photographer but as a great person.  Now *that’s* inspiring.

The first five photo’s come from Raoul’s new series Piramid. I urge you to look at his series as presented on his site and urge you to look at his other work as presented as a series on his site.

The Interview

Can you tell me about how photography started for you?

Photography for me started in 2004 during a year-long backpacking trip in Asia.  The little digital point & shoot I had brought broke a few months into the trip and I decided to buy a decent film SLR while in Kathmandu – for some reason cameras are fairly cheap there.  I can’t recall exactly why I decided to buy a more serious camera at this point other than curiosity about photography and a desire to bring back decent pictures from the trip.  I also bought a small book explaining the basics of photography.

Then I shot very bad travel pictures for the remaining of the trip; but that taught me how to use the camera from a technical standpoint.

The first pictures I was happy with happened when I started shooting street photography in Los Angeles a little later.

And a little about your background beyond photography…

I’m afraid I don’t have very exciting stories here… I was born and raised in France where I studied a bit of engineering then marketing.  I currently work in the cubicle of an interactive advertising agency in New York.

You made a move from France to Los Angeles to New York over the past decade?  Has your work in photography played a part in any of these decisions?

I moved to Los Angeles right after the year I spent traveling for reasons not at all related to photography.  Same thing for the NY move.

However, it is after I moved to Los Angeles that I really got into photography for several reasons.  One of them is that, there, I met people who were into photography and taught me how to look at pictures. I also met people who stimulated my picture taking – I would often go shoot street with other photographers in LA.  Another reason is that taking pictures was a great way to discover and understand LA, a very disorienting city for a regular Frenchman.  I walked a lot, which is a weird thing to do there!

What has added the most value to your growth as a photographer?

Looking at photo books.  When I decided to spend more money in photo books rather than in new lenses, things started to look very different, very quickly.  I started to get what “editing” meant and realized that it was a very important and interesting part of the process.

And of course connecting with other photographers is something I find valuable.

I noticed that you have a number of seemingly strong and respectful relationships with individuals who are great photographers on Flickr.  To the extent you obviously see them in person given the incriminating pictures you’ve taken of them.

Yes, this mainly occurred through Flickr. Luckily, I met a bunch of people like me on there: they got to photography kind of late, some with little artistic background like me; but they were very interested in it and willing to learn.  The good and bad thing is that it’s people from all over the world, but pretty much everybody I wanted to meet, I ended up meeting in person.  I have great relationships with many and I’m very glad.  I have to say I am getting much less out of Flickr now though and I am far less active on the site, but it was a good learning tool for me for a bit and I still log in on a regular basis.

I first found you through Hin who’s one of my favorite photographers.  He and others I’ve chatted with alluded to you being one of the best kept secrets out there and it was clear why.  For me your work was love at first sight and I was surprised I hadn’t come across it earlier.  I’m curious to whether or not you actively kept out of the limelight or whether you just spend less time in promoting your work.  It’s amazing that you have quite a number of great photographers who have great respect for you.

Well, thanks for the kind words. I appreciate.  I’m not doing much in terms of promotion but I’m not hiding either. I don’t think it’s that difficult to find me.  See, you ended up coming across me!

How did your different themes or series come to be?  Did you have the series in mind already or did the framework evolve after some of the photos?  I’ve noticed so many photographers have series that didn’t come into fruition until they started seeing some commonality in their photos.

This is a tricky one, something I still haven’t quite figured out.  I’ve tried different things, some I had an idea before shooting the pictures, others I did not.  But I still don’t know what really works for me.  It is true for me though that specific pictures are important and “click” somehow, giving some kind of direction.

As you’re hunting for your photos what do you tend to look for in terms of content and composition?

Most of the time, nothing special, but, now and then, I know what I am looking for.  I do always appreciate good light though!

Can you tell me a little about your choice or use of tools as part of the photo capture process as well as post processing?

Ha! Camera talk, finally!  I mostly shoot rangefinders for the reason that I like their viewfinders better than SLRs’.  I am also a handheld kind of guy at this point, but like fairly large negatives.  So the best compromise (it’s always a bloody compromise, isn’t it?) at the moment for me is medium format rangefinders.

Regarding post processing… I have been doing the half analog/half digital process (shoot film / scan it / print from digital file) since I started shooting. I am open to any other satisfactory and affordable solution eliminating the scanning part. I haven’t found it myself yet.

Is there something that comes to mind that you’d like to try in regards to photography or the related that you’ve yet to explore? I noticed that you’re experimenting with video.  Pure experimentation?

I’m playing around with video right now but it is really experimentation. Not much there for now but fun.  As far as photography, I’d love to try to print a nice book of pictures, one day…

And last question…. if you had to recommend other photographers or art work in general for others to look at what would that be?  Or asked a different way what art are you looking at.

I can’t pick just a few photographers so I’ll just tell you what book I have been looking at recently, it’s this Gabriel Orozco monograph. I first saw his photographs a few years ago, and for some reason I am really just discovering the rest of his stuff now. It’s pretty great.

Thanks Raoul.  Check out more of Raoul’s work at this personal site.