This week’s featured Photostreamer (<-yea i just made that word up) hails from Louisiana, USA. Xavier started his artistic career as a painter. He had friends who were photographers whom he would argue with about composition and light. He later picked up cameras himself and began to shoot the world through a different perspective. I can relate to this path because my own was similar. As a kid I was trained in the fine arts and to draw by hand. I studied everything from Monet to Comics. When I look at Xavier’s photographs, that training is instantly apparent to me. Every shot feels like it was carefully thought out, and perhaps even sketched in a pad prior to releasing the shutter. Depth of field is kept wide for many of his shots, giving them an almost graphic quality. Sure he does some candid work, as well as spontaneous projects like the popular 100 Strangers, but his colorful scripted and playful photographs take the cake for me.
“I approach photography from the viewpoint of a painter. There are no sacred cows, no rules to follow. I couldn’t care less about tonal contrast, histograms or color balance. If I like the way something looks, and it speaks to me, that is good enough.”
And speak it does. Xavier claims many photographers often get caught up in the obsession of their equipment rather than focusing on a good photo. I can tell you first hand this is true. Being a gadget nerd, I get excited about spec sheets, ISO Performance and Dynamic Range, etc. But all the great gear in the world won’t take a great picture for you. Ultimately its the person behind the camera that controls the experience and not the other way around. Although I like to buy my own bullshit most of the time, I also firmly believe that the right tools can get the job done better. It’s great and probably necessary to learn the fundamentals on basic gear, but once you know your stuff, upgrading means expanding your creativity. I can’t tell you how much more pleased I was with my own work once I discovered off-camera flash. It opened a new world of possibilities to photography that were never there before. Despite his claimed spartan attitude towards picture taking, Xavier has some pretty serious tools at his disposal. His studio lighting is handled by Alien Bees and people in street photography are cleverly lit with a long bracket that moves the external flash more than two feet from the lens.
Do youself a favor and visit Studio d’Xavier’s Photostream on Flickr today!