Women + Art

Brice Ferré is a well established editorial, commercial and fine-art photographer in Vancouver, BC. Born in Rennes, France, Ferré graduated from film school in 2003 eventually moving to Paris to start a career in the film industry. His passion for photography soon became an obvious career and, after moving to Canada in 2009, Brice decided to devote all of his time and energy to doing what he loved most. Since he arrived in Vancouver, his work has been showcased in several art-shows and galleries and his nude fine-art series has become very popular. More than 60 models took part of this series in the past year and a half. Brice is now working on a new series called Ekta that promises to be as big, if not bigger than this one. The following article talks about Ferré’s thought process into his recent collection.

I took my first photo with a reflex camera when I was 2 years old. I am 31 now. I owe my interest in photography to my dad who was a photographer by hobby and who had a pretty cool Pentax camera. I loved looking at that thing. I had no idea what the numbers on the lens were about, but it intrigued me.

Growing up, I always took photos, whether it was with an SLR (film), disposable cameras, or compact cameras. Then the digital era came and the DSLR made their first appearance. After my brother, Romain (who is also a photographer), one day brought one home I became hooked. I immediately bought one for myself and started shooting what or whoever I could shoot.

Today, to me, the attraction of photography comes from the human body itself. Whether it’s female or male doesn’t matter that much, a beautiful body is a beautiful body. I love diversity in my work and so working with different people with different looks and shapes is, to me, the most interesting art.

Of course, for this series I have mostly photographed women because the female body was better for the look that we were going for, one which was more delicate and soft. Next time, maybe, I’ll do a series of just men.

Now to get back to the question that opened this piece, the appeal of the female body, beside the obvious such as the shapes of the body, breasts and all, what’s alluring about females is their ability to move, arch, or turn one little inch of their bodies to instantly switch from the woman you cross in the street, or who works at your bank, to a captivating work of art. Women are different when they are nude. They become more aware of themselves. It doesn’t matter who she is and if she is a “model” or not, all women have it. Some of them are just more aware of how to move. I love doing what I do because every now and then I get to collaborate with a woman who wants to pose as a “bucket list type” challenge, and I love hearing the feedback, when she realizes she could achieve that result.

I love photographs, always have. I have looked at a tremendous amount of photographs in my life; in books, museums, and of course the Internet. I could spend a whole day just browsing through photo books. But as much as I love the female body, I have never been a huge fan of the “completely nude” full frontal photos. These days with digital photography and the easy access to a camera, everybody is a “photographer” and there is a lot of “just nude” photos out there. Good or bad.

Most of the time I won’t even stop on those images, but I always react when there is a twist to it, something different from the mass. I clearly remember having one of those moments a few years ago when I first stumbled upon Pascal Renoux’s work. It was everything I usually didn’t like about nude and yet, I fell in love with his photos. Very simple in appearance but incredible, raw, and with beauty. So much light! (Most of his models were backlit by one pretty big window.)

I didn’t exactly know what it was at the time, but Renoux had this twist, this “something different” from whatever I had seen so far. I absolutely loved it.

It was from that, I suppose, that I figured that if one day I was going to photograph nudes, I would have to find my twist first. Be different from the other photographers and, as Chase Jarvis always says, “Take a picture that only you can take.”

A year and a half ago it happened. I was shooting in my studio and Tessa, a good friend of mine who happened to be there at the time, decided to play with the curtain I had put in front of the window to diffuse the light. She jumped behind it, moving her beautiful dress around. I grabbed a photo and it looked fantastic! This gave me an idea, so of course I asked her to do exactly what she was doing but without the dress. The result was absolutely breath taking to me, and that’s how I got the first photo of the series.

I know…my job is tough.