laurent girard

Laurent Girard has been taking photographs since the age of 12 and began processing film and printing the same year. Self-taught in his new passion, he never stopped taking pictures and never did anything else since. His first camera was a Canon AV-1 with a 50mm lens on it. "I was always too close to my subjects, always had to take a step or two back. That's when I learned about wide-angles.” He collects cameras he can use on different projects, and very often a camera only lasts one project. Laurent has made images with very different styles throughout his career, his love for technique helps him research how an image is composed and what format to show the final print, as well as finding a way to compliment the subject and the technology.

In 1985, laurent moved to Spain to find his way through documentary photography, but a year later he had to return to France for medical reasons, and while getting better he decided to move to New York and study film and photography at the School of Visual Arts. He turned to other ways of making images yet again and concentrated on fine-art photography, that is when his true darkroom love affair really began. Laurent has been a master printer for over two decades now, his prints always bring the best to every negative.

 in 1999, Laurent co-founded the art magazine (t)here, shot the first cover and many stories over the years, and produced and published a wide variety of artists and photographers. He also shot many assignements for several books and magazines such as Paper Magazine and Blind Spot, from portraits to still life. He was nominated for cover of the year for the Life Magazine Eisie Awards, won Communication Arts Awards and has taugh at the Maine Photo Workshops and the School of Visual Arts.