The French photographer Julien Oppenheim at the Maison Martin Margiela show location where we've both worked this afternoon (Paris)

Britta Uschkamp is a Paris based women sexy underwear designer. She's sweet and open-minded. I've already photographed her for an art magazine. I liked her serenity and kindness (Paris)

The Lausanne based stylist Nadja Lakdari has no complex. I photographed her naked in 2008 for Nuke magazine. I was happy to see her again this afternoon at Gare de Lyon. She was just back from Algeria (Paris)

The first time I met Christine Brossart, she was an art buyer in an advertising company. We share, for different reasons, the same love for Africa. I can't believe she's about to graduate as a yoga teacher (Paris)

Jordan Mintzer is an American cinema critic and producer. He lives in Paris with my friend Sophie and their son Dimitri. We had a drink this afternoon and talked about cinema, of course (Paris)

SEDUCE ME 1 / DACHA

Dacha Appolonova is an extremely sensitive woman. I like her humour and typically Russian sense of drama. She told me that, due to her love for Russian litterature, she sometimes feels like living in the nineteenth century (Paris)

More info about the SEDUCE ME video project in the 19/09/2011 post

Martien Mulder is a talented Dutch photographer based in New York. I remembered her name because she bought some of my pictures from the Purple Gallery a few years ago. We met for the first time today (thanks to my friend Aldo Buscalfieri) and spent a nice moment in a park talking about portraiture (Paris)

Jonas receiving presents during the extra birthday party his mother organized today for his school friends (Paris)

Thomas Lélu is smart, and likes to talk. We had a conversation, this morning, about America and his career as a writer and conceptual artist. In the evening I attended a projection of Snow Canon, the poetic and fresh latest short movie of my friend Mati Diop (Paris)

 

Sandie Blanchaud is a graphic designer. But the first time I met her, she was my model for a car magazine shoot. I met her again for a chat today and enjoyed her French beauty style and personality (Paris)

John Jefferson Selve is a journalist. I met him this morning near the office of the very Parisian erotic-chic magazine Edwarda, where he works as editor in chief. We talked about the new generation of western women and the economic crisis (Paris)

ERASED

ERASED ON 01/08/2015

I had tea, early this morning, with Christophe Brunnquell (the mythical old school Purple magazine art director) at his studio. He's an amazing painter with a great sense of mise-en-scene and self-derision (Paris)

SEDUCE ME VIDEO PROJECT

PLEASE SEDUCE ME !

Portraiture is a matter of relationship, and mostly of seduction. 
The issue is for the models to find out an attractive attitude that they will offer to the artist's eyes, and therefore, those of the audience - with the more or less skilled and protective assistance of the portrait maker.

The SEDUCE ME project was born out of this acknoledgement. 
It consists in asking people of my selection to perform intentionally this peculiar game of seduction in front of my video camera, during a couple of minutes.
In other words, they will have to try to seduce me. 
Of each session I will only save a 1 to 2 minutes silent short film.
 
SEDUCE ME 1, the first video of this project, will be posted on Portrait Lab on September 26th. It will initiate a cycle of ideas and concepts centered around the theme of portrait.

I hope you’ll enjoy it.
Translated from French by Adélaïde Gomes

My friend Jeff Rian is a multi talented artist. He's a great writer, musician, teacher and father. (Jeff and his daughter Emma at home this afternoon, Paris)

My friend Atissou Loko is a haitian voodoo drums master. He told me he's been shot in Haïti a few weeks ago, and almost died. My niece Emma Roy is not a kid anymore. She became a pretty young woman who loves fashion and partying (Paris)

Emma in the countryside with her brother Hugo (Normandy, 1999)

"Embarazada", she said to me. "That's the word for pregnant in spanish". The photographer Stéphanie Dupont is expecting her second child. A boy... (Paris)

The Paris based Japanese independant film producer Tamaki Okamoto has a great sense of humour. She explained to me why her eyes are crying when she laughs (Paris)

Patrick Rémy is a journalist, teacher, curator, great books and prints collector, publisher,...... He knows almost everything about what is going on in the international photography world. I visited him at his studio this morning (Paris)

The illustrator Alexandra Compain-Tissier has something mystic. She told me she had an Haitian dream once (Paris)

Before being a musician Levon Mateossian was an art director and stylist. We discussed about collaborating on a video project (Paris)

I had a drink, today, at the noisy Point Ephémère with Emeric Glayse, one of the most interesting contemporary photography curators of the moment (Paris)

A short moment with my friend Sophie Toporkoff, the talented Creative Director of Maison Martin Margiela, talking about kids and looking at her last holidays pictures (Paris)

The make up artist Fusako Okuno is as mysterious and graceful as a cat. Her good energy makes photo shoots easier. I always enjoy seeing her (Paris)

          

I spent a nice moment this afternoon chatting with my friend Manu Boubli at Superfly Records, his music shop near République. As far as I can remember, that guy has always known everything about groovy music (Paris)

Laetitia Bénat is one of my favourite artists. Walking with her remembered me the late nineties, when she was one of these sophisticated and rebellious Purple magazine contributors who changed the rules of photography (Paris)

Laetitia near Beaubourg (Paris, 2001)

After a Christian Louboutin portrait shoot for Le Monde (with my assistant, Gaëlle Pilleboue) I visited the cool Creative Director and surfer Emmanuel Brunet at his agency (Paris)

My friend Olu Michael Odukoya (talented London based Creative Director and Publisher of Kilimanjaro) this morning, just out of the shower, planning a photo shoot in Paris (Paris)

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ERASED ON 08/12/2011

 “A portrait is not a likeness. The moment an emotion or fact is transformed into a photograph it is no longer a fact but an opinion. There is no such thing as inaccuracy in a photograph. All photographs are accurate. None of them is the truth. ”

Richard Avedon

 A portrait was posted here for three months. The lady who has performed as the model asked me to erase it.

Whatever is her reason, I respect it and erased my picture immediately.

I have been disappointed at first, but then I decided to look backwards at this experience positively. As a matter of fact, it is an actual expression of what is and what is not portrait.

Therefore I grab the occasion to clarify some points.

A lot of people do mix portraiture with flattery. To be looking for an attractive mirror on a self portrait is understandable. But, a portrait does not necessarily take as a priority to render beautiful the idea that a model makes of themselves. Instead, the portraitist has to translate into his own language the inner conception that he has of a special person in a specific moment.

This is the spirit of the most admirable photographers, and, of course, mine in this blog too. I see no reason why those who do not share it should be represented in here.

Translated from French by Adélaïde Gomes

Jonas sweating after sport (Paris)

Gaelle Pilleboue, my assistant, having a drink with me just after a French politician portrait shoot for L'Optimum (Paris)

This morning in my area, I ran into Martin Bruno, the photographer. We used to play a long time ago in the same football team. We talked about photography and his sister Vanessa (Paris)