Christophe Gilbert
Christophe Gilbert is an amazing Belgian photographer whose work is nearly all self taught and very different from anything I’ve ever seen. He was born in Brussels in 1962 and studied photography only for a year, taking night classes at the Academy of Ixelles. He began his career assisting a well-known car photographer in the eighties, thus ganging himself a little credibility and more importantly, some publicity. He said of his experience with car photography, “Cars reflect everything that surrounds them, as I found out in many incidences how light can bring a piece of metal to life. But I soon realized that photography had not that much to do with techniques. It looked to me quite simple: all you really need is an eye, preferably related to a brain. Once framed, anything could make an interesting picture.”
He began working in advertising photography almost immediately from the start. He claims, “it’s not about what you see, or even how you see things anymore, but about how you want things to be seen.” He believes his pictures must have a goal, a story to tell, or a feeling to elicit, or an opinion to create. He rarely translates a concept from its raw form, but instead captures the idea and looks for the best way to improve it. “Concepts are my food. And I’ve got quite a fragile stomach!”
Gilbert won CCB (Creative Club of Belgium) Awards in 2000, 2001, 2003, and 2005. There is not a lot of information on him but I think his work is really worth knowing about.
