Photographer
Thibault Gaëtan Dubroca, "Benjamin", "Nathan", "Luc Bruyere", "Jean Louis", "Valentin Seguin", "Daniel Alwell"
Q: Should a portrait always have a function?
A: I think the desire to make a portrait is a sufficient reason for doing it. Only the agreement from a person to be portrayed is necessary to begin.
Q: What is the core difference between a selfie and a self-portrait?
A: In my opinion, it is about the purpose. A selfie is usually made with the conscious or unconscious aim of social validation, recognition from peers, and of testing attractiveness. Whilst, a self-portrait is more a statement, a piece of evidence showing oneself, expressively or narratively, in a moment of their life to a viewer.
Q: What is the impact of cheap cameras or instant filters on portraiture in photography?
A: It is quite ambivalent. Instant filters and cheap cameras allow the access of photography to a lot of people, who don’t necessarily need knowledge in photography to make pretty good quality images. That’s a really good thing because a lot of photography emerges from this, the not knowing, and it sometimes brings nice things, even if most of the time it does not. The democratisation of these tools permits the emergence of a new production, and at the same time it has also shaken the whole photography industry for independent image workers; portrait photographers who have become less “needed”.
Q: If every portrait is considered a reproduction of somebody, and all reproduction is an interpretation, is it at all possible to depict the true body as it is in real life?
A: A body cannot be true without being embodied. The people who live through the body give it an attitude, an evolutive state of being, according to the emotions they go through. I think that, for now, a documentary video or a video interview is the best way to be true, or sculpture and possibly 3D technology too (which perhaps already exists now, or at least definitely will do in the near future).
Q: During the portrayal process, are you ever concerned with what the subject will think of the result?