© Thomas Gauthier from the series 'Journée ordinaire'

Hello Thomas, where did it all start?

Thomas Gauthier (TG): I started to take an interest in photography when I was 22-23 years old. At the time, I was starting my first job as an industrial designer. I wasn’t very interested in this job. So I seriously thought about changing jobs. I bought my first camera in 2005, and in early 2007 I quit my job. I then tried to enter a photography school but didn't make it. In 2008 I joined a fashion and still life photo studio and became an assistant.

How would you describe your approach to the medium in general as a visual maker?

TG: I am constantly searching for my photography writing, so it isn't easy to describe my approach. Visually I adapt to the subject I am photographing. From series to series, my style varies a lot. I can shoot only in the same format and in b&w or mix formats and color with b&w. I don't raise barriers, even though I've been working with films almost for six years. But for my in-depth research, I think I am trying to put in images my feelings, my emotions. I like to combine text (not necessarily mine) and photos. I tend more and more towards a search for myself. Am I just wondering who I am?

© Thomas Gauthier from the series 'Journée ordinaire'

Your series 'Journée ordinaire' won Urbanautica Institute Awards 2020. Can you briefly introduce what motivated you to start this project moving from your daily journeys?

TG: Journée ordinaire' is the result of 10 years of street photography. When I started photography in 2006, I took to the streets to take pictures. Ten years later, I noticed that something was wrong. My street photo was too close to Moriyama, Meyerowitz, Winogrand, or Levinstein. The result was not bad, but there was nothing new, nothing modern. Something had to be changed. So I started to take an interest in the details, the corners that no one was looking at. The people are almost gone. Over time, I realized that wonderful details could be hidden in everyday life, such as reflections and cracks that say a lot about what can be beautiful or what we want to hide. It's by going shopping in the places you know best that you can see these flawed details.

© Thomas Gauthier from the series 'Journée ordinaire'

© Thomas Gauthier from the series 'Journée ordinaire'

© Thomas Gauthier from the series 'Journée ordinaire'

You wrote about the series “that offers a free interpretation of reality”. As if the photograph left the reader a space to imagine the story. I find an affinity with writing that contains images but does not show them. You show pictures but you somehow let everyone use their own vocabulary. What relationship do you have with poetry?

TG: Indeed, I like to leave room for the imagination. I feel so out of touch with our current society that I need photography to detach myself from things that take up our time and energy. I perceive photography as one of the forms of poetry. I don’t know what poetry means, but I use photography as a way to escape the reality of my daily life. Poetry is my escape.

Compared to your previous work 'Seules les étoiles resteront' (published BY Urbanautica in the catalog 'Extinction. The World Without US'), here I feel time. There is the displacement, the proceeding, everything flows around the photograph which instead constitutes itself as a suspension. Are these random fragments, moments that escape the mundane and the commodified ordinary? How did you choose these ingredients, how did you play/plan to edit them? Why black and white?

TG: I think so. The photographs in the series are like random fragments. Hazard is very present in this work. I took many pictures on the way to work or to an appointment. I am not looking for anything specific. A detail, a reflection, attracts my eye. The choice is made during the editing. I’m trying to build a sequencing that gives rhythm. Sometimes by choosing to isolate one image or combine two, I construct a narrative of associations and isolated images. Sometimes it can be a temporal connection that creates a feeling of instability. Sometimes the diptych is linked by a color or a detail (a gold watch and a reflection of the same color). Sometimes the association works by contrast.

As I told you, street photography is the basis of my photography. And for many years, I only used black and white. The color came later. This series is a turning point in my practice of street photography. But I wanted to keep the black and white and bring a color / b&w mix that fits this job perfectly. I work on the daily, on the routine. This mixture can be akin to our mood swings or our perception of the city. For this work, I put a lot of constraints (only vertical, few people, only my city...) which is a good thing, I think, but I didn’t want to choose between color and b&w.

© Thomas Gauthier from the series 'Journée ordinaire'

A city. I see an urban condition represented. Solid and rarefied. Nature is barely disappeared. It is not a description but it is again a perfume, an essence of the city. What is your relationship with the city you live in? What do you think about the contemporary urban condition? What are you really trying to capture?

TG: I have a relationship with my city “Je t’aime... , moi non plus/I love you..., me neither” (Serge Gainsbourg). Paris is like everywhere else, a great and difficult place to live. I have lived there for 38 years. I know this place by heart. Living there is more and more complicated for me as a human being. But I think that’s the case with all the big cities in the world. I don’t know what to say about the contemporary urban condition. We need to find a balance between excessive urbanization and a more human-oriented way of life. If I take the example of Paris, we see that there is more and more space for bicycles, that there are more and more small shops than before. But there are few spaces, few gardens. Like everywhere, there is a return to the countryside. But it’s a cycle. Some people will come back to town. In any case, for my part, I still need this city, but I spend more and more time in the countryside. I don’t know what I’m trying to capture. I’m just trying to open my eyes. This job is like therapy for me—a moment out of time.

© Thomas Gauthier from the series 'Journée ordinaire'

© Thomas Gauthier from the series 'Journée ordinaire'

© Thomas Gauthier from the series 'Journée ordinaire'

The plot of the series takes us back to commuting, to that existential swing that many inhabitants experience. A daily back and forth. A space that you define familiar and to which we pay no attention. Is there something alienating about this being absent? Why?

TG: I don’t know what you mean by absence. This work is a kind of research for me. I spend long hours walking and therefore thinking and thinking. But over the years, people on the streets have ”disappeared“ more and more. Their attention turns increasingly to their phones. This series doesn’t talk about that, but it’s hard not to talk about it because this phenomenon is so global. Yes, when we travel between home and work, we are absent. I don’t know if it’s alienating, but it’s a fact.

© Thomas Gauthier from the series 'Journée ordinaire'

Could you mention 3 books that are meaningful with respect to the project and your work in general?

TG: Ouch! 'Tout va Bien', JH Engström, 2015, Aperture. 'Farewell photography', Daido Moriyama, 1972. 'ZZYZX', Gregory Halpern, 2017, Mack.

LINKS

Thomas Gauthier (website)
Urbanautica Institute Awards 2020