Today, I’m joined by Aude Delannoy Dib, a street photographer from France living in the United Arab Emirates. Her work speaks to me because of the vibrant, multi-layered compositions.
Follow Aude Delannoy Dib:
- Website: https://audedib.wixsite.com/mabota111
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mabota11
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- BlueSky: https://bsky.app/profile/fredpaulussen.bsky.social
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- My website: www.fredericpaulussen.be
Timestamps of this episode with Aude Delannoy Dib
00:00 Introduction to Street Photography and Aude’s Journey
05:54 Transition from Painting to Photography
12:00 Navigating Street Photography in the UAE
17:55 The Art of Composition and Framing
23:53 The Importance of Education and Feedback in Photography
28:34 The Evolution of Photography Appreciation
29:08 Camera Choices and Technical Considerations
31:11 Editing: A Necessary Evil
33:40 Capturing Emotions Through Photography
38:36 Creating Series: The Art of Cohesion
43:06 Embracing Limitations as a Source of Creativity
46:47 Daily Photography: Finding Rhythm in Constraints
Photographers, resources, and gear mentioned in this episode:
My personal takeaways from talking to Aude
- Get busy with working your scene and adding complexity to it. Add another element; see if you can find complementary colors and build upon what’s already there.
- When giving and receiving feedback, the “why” is very important, as it helps you improve beyond just critique.
- Having restrictions helps you, but you need to take those restrictions (like bad weather in Istanbul) head-on
Thank you for listening to this conversation with Aude. Don’t forget to subscribe to be updated about upcoming episodes. Feel free to reach out via social media if you have any questions or ideas you’d like to share.
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Podcast Transcript
Frederic Paulussen (00:01)
welcome to the Slice of Time Street Photography Podcast. A podcast in which I explore the work of different street photographers across the world, genres and visions. And this of course is to expose ourselves to different ideas, ways of looking and ⁓ helping you and me to form our own vision of street photography. And today I’m joined by Aude Delannoy Dib I hope I pronounced that right. A street photographer originally from France, but living in Dubai.
aude (00:24)
Correct? Correct.
Frederic Paulussen (00:30)
⁓ And the work spoke to me because of the vibrant and very ⁓ multi-layered compositions with a lot of colors, so I think we’ll be talking into that. So maybe Aude you could introduce yourself for a second there.
aude (00:45)
Good morning, Frédéric. Thank you so much for having me today to talk about photography, my favourite subject of all subjects, I think. Introduce myself. Yeah, I think that’s most difficult. That’s the question I didn’t want to answer to and I didn’t, you never prepare, you never prepare to answer to that question. ⁓ Originally, I’m French, but I was lucky enough to…
Frederic Paulussen (00:57)
That’s a difficult one, right?
Okay.
aude (01:13)
to live in different countries all along my life. It started with South Africa as I was a baby and then as a teenager, we moved as a family to England for a couple of years and then I was back in France to study. And I think those experiences living abroad led me to choose ⁓ to study business because I thought that then it would be easier for me to travel, I mean, to work abroad.
which I did and ⁓ when I started my ⁓ working career, I started in Paris, but then I moved to Milan for a couple of years. So I worked in corporate business for many years before I moved to London to be with my future husband. And there I stopped working ⁓ and I decided to
to do something completely different that I always wanted to do but I had put aside, which was to apply for an art school. And the UK have something that at the time was really great, that whatever your age, you could always apply to study somewhere. So at the time I was about 28, I think. So applied, I did a foundation course and I applied to art schools and three of the main London art school
accepted me. So I did a BA, decided to do it at Chelsea Art School, a BA in painting. So, you know, I dedicated then my life to painting for many years until I had my three children. And then it became really, you know, I was painting on very big canvas and very colorful, but it took a lot of space, a lot of time. And with three children, it became really unmanageable. And my husband said to me, you know, we’ve got all this messy.
paintings and paints everywhere. You have to do something about it. So I decided to quit painting and to take a camera instead. ⁓ First, it was to document my children, I think. And I needed ⁓ an artistic ⁓ way of express myself. And it was, you know, from painting, it shifted to photography. And of course, just
know, photographing my children wasn’t enough for me, so I had to imagine some scenarios in which they were playing kind of an act, so that I would take pictures of that. And I did this for many, many years until they became teenagers and they said to me, that’s it, we’ve had enough, we feel exposed, we don’t want to do this anymore, what are you gonna do with those pictures? What about if our friends, you know, see it on social medias?
So they put an end to it and it kind of coincided with the time that we moved as a family. moved to the UAE in Abu Dhabi first. So it was in 2016, 10 years ago. And I said, okay, what shall I do now? So I took my camera and I went in the streets, which wasn’t…
an easy choice because in the UAE you’re not allowed to take photography of people without their consent, at least, without their consent. So you would ideally, what they say is that you should have ⁓ consent forms in your backpack and each time you take a picture of someone, you get them to sign the form, which is not really the spirit of street photography. So I think I really started ⁓ photographing, not buildings, but…
having in my composition less people, of course, because I was really afraid and I got really told off so many times by security people that, you know, it kind of put you off. So I decided to go to industrial areas where there were still security people, but, you know, people in the street, were workers and they didn’t really mind me taking pictures. But anyway, you know, one year after one year, I mean, I…
I explored different areas in the UAE and I came out to find that in Dubai, living in Abu Dhabi, Dubai, people were more relaxed in certain areas. So I would start traveling to Dubai to take photographs and in 2019, we actually moved to Dubai. So that’s where my street photography really started to pick up. And I would go to very old places, areas of Dubai.
where again, people didn’t mind being taken to being photographed. And it was easier for me to try to do something in the streets. I don’t know if I’ve really been talking about myself. I’ve already started talking about photography.
Frederic Paulussen (06:08)
Okay, well.
No, but I mean we’re going to talk about your photography so you’re in a very essential part in that I think so. To me it’s interesting so did you do any photography during the painting already or was it more like really a hard ⁓ pivot? Okay.
aude (06:27)
It was a hard transition.
Yeah, I didn’t really take any photographs. No, no, no, that wasn’t something I was doing. I remember asking even my husband, you know, buy me a camera, small camera so I can take pictures of the children so that we don’t miss all those moments because they’re growing so fast. And my camera was something very basic, my first camera, very basic with a, you know, I don’t even remember the brand, but you know, something very cheap.
Frederic Paulussen (06:45)
Yeah.
aude (06:56)
and I didn’t really care about ⁓ the results of what I was taking. It was more to document something. Then it evolved into some more artistic practice, I would say, with time. But that wasn’t the aim at first.
Frederic Paulussen (07:02)
Yeah.
Okay, cool. And so to me, I don’t know your paintings, but I can easily imagine your street photography being ⁓ influenced by your painting style, because it’s very, like very colorful, very well layered, but also you have these, these lined of surfaces, so to speak, in every photo. is there, yeah, geometry and then.
aude (07:39)
Geometry, so yeah, there’s a lot of geometry. Yeah.
Frederic Paulussen (07:42)
Yeah, exactly. That’s what I tried to say but I didn’t find the word. But was it something that came from your paintings then as well? Or is it a totally different style?
aude (07:53)
it’s totally different. My paintings were figuratives. I was painting people, I was making portraits of people, and only that. And I had a hard time inventing a background to it because for me the main focus were the subjects. And I remember in art school, they were always telling me, but what about background? And I said, well, the background doesn’t really interest me, you I’m only interested in the people. And now in photography, I would say it’s completely the opposite. Because for me, the subjects…
I mean, the people in my photographs are not the subject. The subject is the background, the foreground, the middle ground, the geometry. I mean, the light, of course, is the subject of my photography, the color, but not the people anymore. So it’s a complete shift to what I used to do in painting. But what remains is a color. The color is always a center stage in my photography.
Frederic Paulussen (08:42)
It’s good school.
aude (08:49)
is always is in my painting because I still painting today I’m still drawing you know I haven’t quit this yeah that’s what I took from painting the color and the composition of course probably the composition as well
Frederic Paulussen (08:57)
Okay. That’s,
Because it’s fairly similar, I assume the ideas and the rules in painting and photography there is, yeah.
aude (09:08)
Yeah,
you have a white square rectangular canvas, like a frame in a picture, and you need to fill it in. And it’s probably why you’re telling me that. It’s true that some people tell me that my frames in photography are full, very full. There’s a lot of things everywhere. But I think it’s ⁓ coming from a painting where you feel you need to compose and to balance and to have the eye go around the painting.
There’s always things, little things that should attract the eye. And I think I try to do the same in photography probably.
Frederic Paulussen (09:45)
Yeah, I had the question actually written down that you have a very up close approach, like you go really close into your subjects, not necessarily people, but your subjects, filling your frames, as you said, and like I wrote down not into minimalism, because your frames are very full and very ⁓ colorful, which I really appreciate, but it’s not easy to do, I think, and it’s also not easy to spot always because…
aude (10:03)
Mm. Mm.
Frederic Paulussen (10:14)
Lots of elements ask for lots of attention of course. So I can imagine your photo walks being mentally exhausting after a while because of all the things you tried to organize. ⁓ And so you started out ⁓ in Abu Dhabi with street photography. ⁓
aude (10:36)
Yes.
Frederic Paulussen (10:37)
And that’s because that’s immediately of course a very restricted ⁓ place to do that genre. So I can imagine it, yeah, you got a really quick course in how to maintain yourself and how to behave in the streets. And because you also go to other places, those places became easier to you or did, yeah.
aude (11:02)
⁓ There are many questions in your question. ⁓ No, no, no. I mean, I just wanted to say, before I answer to these questions, you were talking about mental. You said it must be very mentally exhausting to compose a picture. Actually, it’s the contrary. I go in the street to relax and to empty my mind. And it’s true, as I empty my mind, I feel in the frames. mean, it’s not exhausting. It’s a game for me. It really is. ⁓
Frederic Paulussen (11:05)
Sorry, yeah.
Yeah.
aude (11:31)
when I enter the street and I see there’s always something that’s gonna, you know, captivate my eye. I’m gonna see something, it’s probably a color, a shadow or something. And as I get closer, and I’m trying to imagine what I can put in the frame and I’m gonna try to move so I can get as much, as many things as possible in that frame to make it complex, more interesting, interrogating.
And if I can’t feel the frame, usually I leave the place and I try something else. So it’s not exhausting for me, it’s emptying my mind and it’s a game. Then to go back to your question,
Frederic Paulussen (12:13)
was about ⁓ the restrictions in ⁓ Abu Dhabi and Dubai, can imagine as well.
aude (12:17)
The restrictions, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. get, say I remember now. ⁓
You know, when I was, ⁓ the first years I was photographing in the UAE and as you said, there were a lot of restrictions and then the fear as well to be caught and to be told off, it’s never nice. And ⁓ so I wasn’t always going in the street with a very light mind. I was afraid of what could happen.
But this probably taught me to master my fear to do things that I’m not allowed to. And nowadays I probably go very close to people because I’ve been used to doing things I’m not supposed to do. it’s not easy to do something you’re not supposed to do and to hide from it.
to hide what you’re doing and it’s not easy to go very close to people because you never know what their reaction is going to be. So that’s what you fear the most, the people’s reaction. But with time, you experience the fact that although the people, when they notice they being photographed 99 % of the time, they’re going to have a very puzzling…
they will glance at you with interrogation but it can be interpreted as anger. But it’s not anger because as soon as you smile to the person or you wink or you wave or you say thank you 99.9 % of the time, people are going to smile back at you and they’re going to be, they won’t mind. It’s just that wonder of what are you doing in their eyes, they’re questioning.
When you tell them, listen, look at me, I’m having fun, it’s nothing, nothing important is going on. And I’m not stealing anything. I’m part of that moment and I’m just recording that moment. People are really relaxed about it. So then traveling, you were mentioning about traveling abroad. It’s when I decided that photography was something important for me and I couldn’t.
⁓ self teach myself all the time I needed ⁓ to be taught properly even you know the part of editing my photos or where do I download them I had no clue about that and I was you know was really clueless and through Instagram you meet people virtually of course but you do meet people and you discuss with them and ⁓ I saw this guy
who seemed to attract a lot of very good photographers who was organizing workshops mainly in Asia, ⁓ who’s called Maciej Dakowicz And I said, okay, I need to do a workshop with that guy to do what I’m doing properly. So I I was able to find a spot in one of his workshop and it took me a couple of years because he’s very popular. And I went to Lahore in Pakistan.
for the first time with him. And ⁓ he taught me everything, the basic of street photography, not in terms of how to frame, but what to do with your SIM card when you need to download it and to Lightroom. I wasn’t using Lightroom and to name it and to order your photos, to give them stars and all that.
helped me a great deal. of course, going to countries, you don’t necessarily think you can go on your own when you’re a woman to Pakistan, which is wrong because now I would go on my own without any problem. But he helped me go around countries which I wasn’t feeling too comfortable to go on my own. Then I decided to go every year and I’m going on a workshop with him.
So this year was in Bangkok, the year before I was in Bangladesh. So this helped me a lot to become a better photographer ⁓ and to, you know, to widen my knowledge of photography and how to react in the street and how to frame and what to do with my photo afterwards.
Frederic Paulussen (17:02)
Yeah, yeah, street photography has. Yeah, I mean, if it’s there’s a lot of information in there. If it’s interesting to my question, that’s fine. But I find it interesting to see where people take some questions. There’s two things that came up to me, but I’m going to start with one is at first you mentioned, you know, you start filling your frame, you start looking for all these elements. Do you ⁓ take the pictures meanwhile, or is it more like a painting where you
aude (17:02)
Is it answering your question?
Frederic Paulussen (17:32)
make your composition first and then you take the one shot, ⁓ so to speak, just like with paintings where it’s, you can just start filling canvases, of course, I can’t make a hundred canvases for one final painting, which you can do with photography. Are you very selective with your shots or are you kind of like me, an overshooter or?
aude (17:55)
I try not to be an overshooter. I used to, and now I’m more picky about what’s happening. So I’m really trying to fill my frame and to have what I like in the frame before I actually shoot. But then there will be ⁓ the human element passing through your frame, which is usually the one you’re expecting to, as a finishing touch to it.
And this, of course, it can take a lot of time to wait for someone to ⁓ cross the frame. Before I would shoot whomever would enter the frame. Now I’m very picky. Like, okay, it needs to be in the color palette I have here. It needs to be a woman or a man. I’m more picky about what I’m going to shoot. But of course, if a scene is really exciting and I think I have a very interesting framing. We’re not talking about… ⁓
Frederic Paulussen (18:38)
Okay.
aude (18:53)
We’re talking about a picture that I compose, not a picture that I take because I see an action of something that is happening. So if I compose something, I’m going to really compose a frame and then I’m going to wait, of course, for something to happen. And then I will start to shoot when someone’s crossing. But I’m not going to make three or five photos of that person crossing, it’s just one. Then I might stay half an hour in the space, in the same spot, and shoot different people who who cross.
Frederic Paulussen (19:00)
Hmm. Yeah.
aude (19:23)
that frame. But I still have, when I’m doing so, if I decided I’m going to stay a couple of, you know, some time to get what I want, what I have in mind, I will force myself just to put down the camera and say, okay, what can I include more in that framing? What angle maybe is better than the one I think is really good? And most of the time, I mean, most of the time, you can always add something, you can always bend down or…
you know, or add something or take something out of it that is gonna make your photo better. And that’s an exercise. I try not to say, okay, I’m here now and I’m not moving because this seems perfect. No, kick yourself and move and try to include something or to exclude something. Try to, it’s like in painting, you you have to try. You can’t say, okay, it is what it is now, it’s perfect, I’m not touching anything. No, you know.
Dare to do something completely different. Dare to destroy that composed image you have and to try something completely different. And you’ll be surprised. Sometimes it’s work better, sometimes it’s not gonna work at all and you’re gonna say, I had it, I had it best the first time. But just don’t be stuck in one place and don’t overshoot. Think more. Before shooting, think more, I would say. I mean, that’s what I try to do.
Frederic Paulussen (20:50)
Yeah, but to me it’s interesting because recently I’ve been learning or learning or finding myself stuck in between these rules. you said, for example, compose more, think more about it in advance. But you have other street photographers and I find it super interesting who are more like intuitive and they just choose the action. And you’re both correct. But I think as a street photographer, so that’s also why I do this podcast. Like you have to listen and find what works for you and then
do that. So for example, for me, I have to start thinking and I noticed recently that to me it helps to slow down a bit and force myself to slow down a bit because I’m a person, I won’t wait at a spot for two minutes. Like to me, that’s already long. I just heard you say half an hour in one spot. To me, that’s crazy. But it does help me to say like, okay, maybe I should try five minutes in one place. And then I usually get a better shot than I had when I just walked past and took it.
aude (21:31)
Mm.
You
Frederic Paulussen (21:48)
quickly, but it might not work for others. So I think it’s very interesting that you said like, this is how I think and works for me and what I do. So yeah, that’s a very good approach. And then the second question I had ⁓ at first was, ⁓ mentioned these workshops you follow like yearly. You also mentioned going ⁓ to art school in London for your painting. Do you find it necessary or important to have like a
an education, which can be in all forms of course, it could be like an actual school, could be workshops, it could be whatever. But do you think that’s something that really helped you advance quicker or better or further than you could have done yourself?
aude (22:34)
⁓ I do. It’s not really education. It’s exchanging with people who have the same mindset as you. ⁓ Nowadays it’s easy because we’ve got, you know, through internet, through Instagram, we meet so many people.
Before we were just on our own in the practice and we didn’t know if what we doing was right or wrong and there was no… Apart from the books of masters of photography, you would see the pictures and try maybe to replicate or to understand what they were doing. You had no one really who would look at your picture and say, this is right, this is wrong, this is why it’s right and this is why it’s not working. So it’s more this I’m looking at, I’m looking for.
when I’m doing this workshop is to have someone who at the end of the day looks at the 10 best pictures, what you think are the 10 best pictures you took of the day, not your thousand picture, just your 10 best or your 20 best. You show that person your 20 best and he’s got the eye, he’s got the experience to tell you, okay, this is not working or this is working and the reason why. So that the next day you go back in the street and you say, okay, I have to think about that.
This is a common mistake I make. For instance, you get too close to your subject and then you crop too many things that are important or you’re too backward, you should step into the scene more. So then the next day, you’re in the workshop, you go back in the street for the whole day and you have this in mind. And it makes you progress much faster than if you’re on your own and you look at your picture and you say, no, I like it, I like it. No, you’re not going to crack it.
progress by looking at your pictures and thinking you like them. You’re going to progress if somebody tells you this is not working. You think it’s working, but it’s not. And points at you what is not working. So now you’re going to tell me that this is very subjective because everyone is going to see something different in your picture. Yes. And that’s why you need to find somebody whom ⁓ I’m not even going to say whose work you admire because you don’t
but somebody whom you trust, ⁓ whose advice you trust because you see that they make sense for you and you see that you progress a lot with this people, this person’s advice. I’ve done workshop with other people who probably didn’t bring me as much as the person I was talking about, Maciej. So that’s why I carry on going to his workshop. ⁓
Frederic Paulussen (25:21)
Yeah, very much. And I think a very important point you also touch on there is the explaining why, like why something doesn’t work instead of just saying like feedback has to be like, yeah, not true, but it has to be, there has to be a reason to it. Yeah, constructive or they have to be like, it doesn’t work. And this is why and not just it doesn’t work.
aude (25:21)
Does that answer the question?
Mm-hmm.
True.
Constructive. Construct… Constructive. Yeah. Yeah. Of course. Of
Frederic Paulussen (25:48)
I don’t feel the
aude (25:49)
course.
Frederic Paulussen (25:49)
photo. Okay, cool. And I think that’s very important that you mentioned that because I think a lot of people, especially with Instagram, it’s a lot of, this is a bad photo. Okay, that’s fine. You can think that, but why do you think that? And also the other way around, I think it’s very important. Like this is a good photo and this is why. And as you said, then you can go further into that, adjust or continue what you’re doing. And I think that’s a very important.
aude (26:07)
Why is it working? Adjust.
What is the?
Frederic Paulussen (26:18)
So do you sometimes take the time to look at your own work and really give that critique yourself? Like say like, okay, this doesn’t work or I thought this worked at the time, but now it doesn’t and this is why, or do you try to keep it all the time?
aude (26:30)
I do this all the time. I
do this all the time. mean, every time I come back from a photo session, some people will tell you you have to let it sit for a while before you look at them. I’m not that kind of person. I need to have a look at them. First, to eliminate all the ones that I think are terrible. And I don’t just eliminate them. I just erase them from everything I have.
Frederic Paulussen (26:56)
really?
aude (26:56)
And
yeah, I need to tidy up what I’ve been doing. I need to, yeah, that thing of tidying up and having just reduce the number to something that is decent is very important to me. So yeah, of course the first day I’m gonna, I’m very harsh with myself. I think I’m quite harsh with myself and I’m happy about that. So I eliminate a lot of photos and then I will just select a couple that I think work. ⁓ But.
The next day, even a week later when I look at them, I might think that they don’t work at all. Because when you’ve just been doing the photos, you’re still emotionally, I mean, whatever you’ve been doing, you’re emotionally attached to your photos because they are yours. They’re like your babies, that’s what you made. And a week later, you’ve lost, maybe a month later, you’ve lost this emotional attachment to that particular moment, to that photo, and you think you just see it as it is.
Frederic Paulussen (27:44)
Yeah.
aude (27:54)
And you might think, what could I ever find in this photo that was working? Nothing is working. So I would say that’s a problem I probably have, is that I’m always excited about the work I’m doing on the daily basis, the day I discovered them. And I’m less excited as I see it with time, because I judge it more.
And I tend to focus on the things or the little things that don’t work instead of saying, overall it’s working. No, I’m gonna see the small mistake that just have made that I think it unbalances it all. And it’s probably not something good.
Frederic Paulussen (28:34)
Yeah.
aude (28:45)
because I can’t really appreciate what I’ve done in the past. I only appreciate what I’m doing today.
Frederic Paulussen (28:45)
No, yeah, it’s…
Sounds familiar, yeah. To me as well, I come home, I edit photos and the day after I go out again and I’m done with the photos from the day before. it’s like, yeah. Like I love them and then I make new ones and then I love those more. It’s always shifting, but so it sounds very familiar. And so… ⁓
aude (29:02)
Yeah. Yeah.
Frederic Paulussen (29:08)
We talked a bit about your first camera, you don’t know which one it is. Is the camera to you these days more important or do you still just have like one camera ⁓ that you use with one lens and you don’t really care what it is or how do you look at the technical side of it?
aude (29:29)
⁓ I’m not gonna say that I don’t care because I used to have, when I started that first workshop with Maciej, I was using an Olympus OMD and he kept telling me, you know, you should change because it’s very old, it’s eight years old and it’s not good. And I said, well, and I was very stubborn. I said, you know, as long as it’s working, I’m using it. You know, I’m not gonna change until it dies on me. And of course, one day it died on me and it was two and a half years ago.
Frederic Paulussen (29:54)
Of course.
aude (29:56)
And two and a half years ago, I finally got a proper camera that he was suggesting. He always suggested to me that I should have a Fuji film camera. And I finally bought a Fuji film. I got the X5, no, X6, sorry, X6 100 Fuji film. ⁓ So it is important in the sense that I need a camera that is reliable and that’s gonna give me a good quality.
⁓ picture but that’s it. Then I have one camera and this camera has a fixed lens and there’s no, you know, I’m not trying to play with different cameras, different lenses and all that. So I have something that is reliable and that’s all I’m really.
Frederic Paulussen (30:44)
Yeah, totally makes sense. And I think that’s a good way to go. ⁓ But yeah, I was wondering because you mentioned you weren’t really into the cameras and I think that’s a very interesting point as well. And also you mentioned if you had a workshop, you started using Lightroom. Is that something because of course there’s… Well, with the masking you can do some painting, but there’s of course differences. do you… ⁓
Enjoy the process of editing your photos or is it more a necessary evil? I see you nodding no already.
aude (31:17)
It is a necessary evil, but I said the first part, before I do anything with my photo, is more ⁓ how to archive my photo first, you know, is to make sense in ⁓ how to archive it. it by ⁓ date or place or, you know, event? And so this is something important so that you can find your work easily.
when you’re looking for it. And Lightroom helps me, as I said, to download from 1000 pictures to just 100 by erasing everything. And when there are a couple that I like, then I’m gonna do some very, and I’m not really into that, but I will do a couple of retouch the colors, mean, retouch the colors, enhance the colors.
Frederic Paulussen (32:15)
Yeah, vibrance and saturation, yeah.
aude (32:15)
you know, the darks and enhance a bit of,
you know, all those little subtle things that will enhance your photo. Because when I started, you know, showing my photos, people would always tell me that I’m not, that I should be editing them a little bit. They were too raw in a way. And I never really understood what they meant. And now I think I do.
because some people took the time to explain to me that you can’t really just shoot a picture and send it as it is wherever you want it to be seen. So now I’m doing a little bit of editing, but it’s nothing dramatic and I’m not really good at it. I know I took a day course Lightroom and I didn’t understand half of what they were talking about.
When they went to, know,
Frederic Paulussen (33:14)
It can become complicated, yeah.
aude (33:16)
completely changing your photos. Like you’ve got a ⁓ pink flower and they make it blue or green or whatever. And this process, said, you know, that’s what I want to do. So I think I shut down on how to do these things. Because some people, that’s what they like. You know, they like to play completely. You can do crazy things, very artistic things with a photo in Lightroom. And that’s not what I’m interested to do.
Frederic Paulussen (33:29)
Yeah.
True, you can go way too far in Lightroom, but for me as well, keep it natural and just enhance some things so I understand. So on your website I saw you called yourself an observer of emotions, which to me was very interesting because, and you mentioned earlier that the people are less important in your Photo or like they’re not less important but they’re not the main subject.
aude (33:46)
Mm, mm.
Frederic Paulussen (34:05)
⁓ but I think they provide a lot of emotions in your photos as well. do you, why is that emotion so important to you?
aude (34:13)
I think there was from the beginning I wanted to ⁓ make the distinction between two types of photos. I mean, that’s where I see it. There are the photos that I compose, we were talking about, where you really compose a photo because you’ve got not… basically because you’ve got not much happening in the street. So when you’re in city or in a street and nothing is happening, but still you find that the color and the shadows and the atmosphere is interesting.
and your heart beats because you see all this and you want to frame it in a way that looks amazing to you. So this is one type of photo and the other type of photo is actually you in a place where it’s… that people everywhere is buzzing and things happen just in front of you. Extraordinary things for you but ordinary things for everyone around you but it’s a gesture, it’s a…
It’s the way people are being dressed or how they move or something crazy happening like a cat jumping from the roof onto a place, a plate of food or whatever. This is another type of photo where you can’t really, you don’t have time to compose and to think what you’re gonna, how you’re gonna frame. You just need to be very, very quick to compose something without the thing.
before the scene disappears. It’s just one second and everything changes. So these are two different skills, I would say. But the first one probably helps you to compose the second one quickly. If you are used to compose, then probably when you have to do it in a split second.
Frederic Paulussen (35:59)
Yeah.
aude (36:03)
You are trained to do it. Of course, you’re going to miss a lot of scenes because sometimes you’re not prepared or your eyes doesn’t see where you should stand to get the most out of the scene. But with practice, you get that. ⁓ going into busy cities like I was in Istanbul a month ago, it’s just amazing for this practice because you actually, it’s like diving into ⁓ the…
the crowd, you actually you dive into the crowd and you’re trying to compose something you want to give shape to the movement of the people of what’s happening in the place. So to go back to your question because I’ve been, I’ve not been answering, we’re talking about emotions. Why am I talking about emotions? For two reasons. The first thing is I think that colors carry a lot of emotions.
Frederic Paulussen (36:53)
I love it. Yeah.
aude (37:03)
Every city has a different palette of colors. Some cities would be more, I’m not going to say dull, but you have a lot of grays and blues and you know that…
Frederic Paulussen (37:14)
I was immediately thinking
about Antwerp being very grey.
aude (37:18)
You know, but
more sad colors and it gives a mood of the place. So it’s the emotion of the place as well. And when you go to southern countries like Italy, the south of France, you have a lot of red and yellow and orange and the sun is very bright. You know, it’s a lot of saturation and it also gives a mood of the place. So it’s also an emotion. So that’s the color being an emotion. So that’s why I try to capture.
And then there is the emotion, of course, as you said, of the people when I’m stepping into a scene where there’s a lot of people, there’s a crowd, you’re capturing the emotion of the moment, of the place where you are, because you are capturing the movement, like the cinematic movement of what is happening at that time. So it’s capturing the emotion of the place as well.
Frederic Paulussen (38:13)
Yeah, think you do that brilliantly. So that’s definitely great. And so on your website, I also saw you like to work with series, like combined photos. Is that something you’re often thinking about or is that just something at some point you tell yourself I have to make a series of this or how does that process look for you?
aude (38:19)
very kind.
That’s a very good question and interesting one. I said both. Sometimes, like last summer, went to Copenhagen for the first time. I had never been in a place. So when I started shooting and I saw that I was very attracted by what was unusual to me.
in that city, which were also in the middle of a city. People, as soon as there is sunshine, they would undress, be in swimming costume and on the pavement or wherever they find place. They just want to bath in the sun and to be next to the water. There’s a lot of water in the city everywhere. So you’ve got all these people undressing.
and taking the sun and sunbathing in the middle of the city and that is very unusual. So I started taking pictures of that and at the end I thought, wow, when I came back I said I’ve got so many pictures of this, that makes a great series. I mean, that’s, and actually I want to go back to go deeper into that subject and to make something that is coherent, a coherent series. ⁓ So that’s one way of doing it. And another way would be,
Again, we’re going to take the example of Istanbul. As I said, I like the colors and I like the light. Light is my main subject. And after two days, ⁓ was just rain and bad weather for the rest of the week. So I was feeling very depressed and I was thinking, okay, I’m not going to be depressed for one week and wander around the street and feeling sorry for myself. So I need to find an idea.
something to do during those days so that I don’t waste my time. I thought of a series, I thought of some things that would never do. I decided to photograph all the, do call the graffitis? When people paint on the walls and graffitis. So I
Frederic Paulussen (40:46)
Yeah.
Graffiti, yeah, yeah.
aude (40:51)
it’s place where on the walls of the city there are so many layers of people painting and drawing and putting, sticking stuff on the wall and at the end I find it absolutely amazing. I mean it attracted me as soon as arrived in the city but that wasn’t my main subject so I just saw it but that’s not what I was photographing but as the weather deteriorated I said I need to do something with that.
So I was obsessed with photographing those graffitis, but to frame them in a certain way, to make them interesting, again, not just photograph them, to document them, but to frame them in a way that was interesting. And then I said, yeah, then I’m going to combine these when I got home. I said, I’m going to combine those graffitis, those photos of graffitis, with photos that I actually took in Istanbul that echo those graffitis. And that’s what I’ve been, I’ve started a series like that.
So some series I start as the real, I think about it and I’m actually making it happen. And other times it’s just coming back from a place or from a travel, you realize that you have photographed a lot of things that have the same subject or have the same idea behind. And you want to dwell more on that and you carry on.
Frederic Paulussen (41:53)
In advance,
Yeah, I think that’s very interesting. And so I also find it very interesting that ⁓ because a lot of street photographers would, you know, they would feel sorry for themselves, I think, when they’re in Istanbul and it would rain. Because I also don’t think, I’m not sure how often it rains there, but I think it’s, ⁓ you really chose the one week where it happens. Yeah, but I think it’s great. And for me as well, like I kind of like the emotion of the rain. Well.
aude (42:35)
I wasn’t lucky. Yes.
Frederic Paulussen (42:44)
also because we have a lot of it here in Belgium, but there is a certain, like people still have to go to places and there’s some kind of resilience in it. But anyway, I think I find it very ⁓ interesting that you still decided I have to work with this. Like this is ⁓ the hand I’m dealt. So I think in…
Is that something that just happened that one week or is that something that you often find that there’s like some kind of resistance? Of course, in this case, it’s the weather, but it could be as well with the rules in the UAE, but also other things that you seem to find your way to ⁓ turn those problems around.
aude (43:27)
Mm.
⁓ I think now my motto is the fact that ⁓ limitation is the source of creativity. And that’s what I’ve put on my Instagram page as well now. I think the more constrained you are, the more creative you are. And the more creative you are, the less boring what you do is. Because you have to think more about what you are doing.
Being impulsive is great to a certain extent, because then you’re going to repeat yourself. I think you’re going to repeat yourself. But if you’ve got limitation, you have to think around those limitations to be able to still build something. And this I learned in the UAE when nothing is really happening in the street. And even if something is happening, you’re not really allowed to take it. it’s a lot of constraints. So you have to be creative.
And being creative makes you develop certain parts of your brain where you, even when the place is busy, you still have this creativity that has been growing in your mind and ⁓ you still apply it to your photography when things are easier in a way. I mean, I hope so. That’s how I feel.
Frederic Paulussen (44:54)
Yeah,
makes total sense. And so do you sometimes give yourself these constraints or do you just try to? No, okay. You don’t need to.
aude (45:01)
No, I don’t need to. I still have them naturally.
Yeah, you always have constraints. as I said, weather-like, you you want sunshine because you feel inspired. I feel inspired, excited when I know, you know, when it’s sunny and I’m somewhere, I’m so excited. When I see clouds, I know it completely drains my motivation. I don’t even want to go out. I don’t want to take my camera to go out.
But when you actually went to place, like I went to Istanbul, I traveled to Istanbul to take photographs, and the weather is bad, what do you do? I mean, you have to force yourself to go out. So you have to think about, what shall I do to make it work? But when I’m at home, yeah, it’s true. I could say, okay, the weather is bad, I’m not gonna bother. But then it’s gonna be hot, like here it’s really hot.
It’s hot, I’m not going to shoot, so when am I shooting? So even when it’s really hot, it’s constraint. So you have to force yourself to go out and say, when am going to shoot? Because there’s going to be no one in the street because it’s really hot. You’re the only crazy person outside with this weather. So what are you going to do? Okay, reflections. Reflections of what? Reflections of whatever ⁓ feels interesting to you. Yeah, that would be another thing, what I do here.
When it’s really hot, there’s no one in the street, I’m going to try to work on reflections and wait for somebody, the only person in the street at that time to actually cross the frame.
Frederic Paulussen (46:35)
Yeah,
you’re a crazy person going outside at that time of day. do you like try to do street photography daily or how does your rhythm in that case look?
aude (46:40)
Yeah.
⁓
Well now it’s really really really hard so going daily I mean it’s really painful but I’ve been going daily until like 10 days ago ⁓ because I was working on a project that I came across. It was ⁓ about a month ago I returned to a place I love to go at this time of the year which is the only ⁓
metro station where the people actually have to walk outside from the metro station to an area called business bay where there’s a lot of offices because all the other areas you would have pass you would have indoors I call it passage yeah tunnels that makes you actually go wherever you want to go but in this specific area people have to go outside
Frederic Paulussen (47:34)
yeah, yeah.
Kind of like tunnels inside the buildings. Yeah.
aude (47:46)
So it means outside for me the sun, there is light, there’s things happening, building in the background. So ⁓ I said, okay, I need to go back every year, try to go around the month of May. And this place had completely changed because they are building some new stuff. So everything has changed. So I felt that the background of my photos were too similar. know, every photos look the same because the background was the same because there are these working, know, panels at the back.
all the pictures look the same. And I said, well, I need to do something about it because I have some very interesting characters crossing my frame, but everything looks the same. So I worked on that project of isolating the person and darken, I was that for once lightroom, I used lightroom a different way. I’ve really darkened to black the background just to have my subject come out as a single person or two or three people.
And so I’ve decided, I went back to that place every day, every day at the same time for a couple of weeks to have this project ⁓ complete and to be able to make a series, as I’m pleased with, of about 30 pages of, each page is a diptych, so there are two people who match together. So that’s…
Frederic Paulussen (49:08)
Yeah.
aude (49:11)
What’s for the question, are you going out daily? Yes, when I can, I do. I can, I do, yeah.
Frederic Paulussen (49:15)
Yeah
and to me that series sounds interesting because at some point did you start recognizing the same people over and over again each day because I assumed that they have their rhythm to go to work. So was that something that worked for you that they were always the same people or was that kind of another restriction of course but it’s annoying because it’s that same guy again or…
aude (49:24)
Yeah.
It’s funny that you mentioned that. It’s so funny because it is true that I do see, because I was going at the same time, I would see the same people, but we’re talking about hundreds of people coming in the same direction, the same time, within the same hours. It’s really hundreds and hundreds of people, but you do recognize some people because they dress in a specific way or they have a different hat or something that makes them different. And you spot them like, ⁓ here’s a guy with that specific hat.
And I didn’t mind because ⁓ I knew when I would recognize someone and I knew I had a picture of that person, I could concentrate on someone else. Because again, there are hundreds of people coming. So said, I’ve got a great picture of that guy. So let’s shift my attention to someone, someone else that is interesting. And I knew I don’t have the picture of this person. But this said, I have found myself with the portrait of several
of the same, several portraits of the same person. And I found it funny because when I was photographing, I didn’t see, I was photographing the same person. But then it makes links as well, because at the end, after a couple of weeks, people, they were expecting to see me. And many people like waved at me, or it was so funny because I became like ⁓ part of the scene. I was part of that scene. In the evening, they knew they would see me. So that was interesting.
Frederic Paulussen (51:05)
Yeah.
And
did you communicate with them sometimes about the series or were they completely unaware?
aude (51:12)
A couple of people,
Sometimes some people stopped, very few, because you know, it’s the end of the day, people just want to go back home and they’re crossing this place very quickly because it’s really hot, people are melting down, they just want to get over with that. That’s one kilometer straight, they want to get it over and go home. But some people questioned me. Some people would ask me what I was doing. Some people asked me to take pictures of them in a more formal way.
So yes, yes, but a few people compared to the numbers that actually came past me. Yeah.
Frederic Paulussen (51:47)
Yeah.
And so you mentioned the heat, wasn’t it very hard on you then? You mentioned people wanting to go straight underground to hide from the sun. But you were there then in the full sun watching them for an hour or two hours, I’m not sure. Wasn’t that ⁓ very, very intense for yourself as well?
aude (52:03)
Yeah.
It’s draining. I would stay at least two hours between four and six. ⁓ I mean, you can’t imagine. I’m dripping. mean, my clothes are completely wet. I’m heavy with sweat. No, but the camera stops working at some point. There’s always a moment when it’s overheating and you’ve got this red signal like overheating. have to…
Frederic Paulussen (52:28)
yeah your camera didn’t fall out of your hand because of the sweat slickly or ⁓ true
aude (52:41)
get it to the shade and wait a little bit before I can go back to it. Yeah, yeah. But all those people, they’re just not like me. I’m only wearing, of course, a hat, at least it’s a minimum. But all those people, they have umbrellas to protect themselves. Some people have, they all wear something. They all wear something to protect them from the sun.
I’m the only one unprotected in a way and staying for much longer there. But it is physical, it’s draining, you know, it is draining physically, of course, especially at this time of the year.
Frederic Paulussen (53:13)
And so that’s
you only kept that at a month or is it,
aude (53:19)
Why
the months is because that’s the time of you know here the sun the the sun goes down very early So we are these are the longest days of the year and it’s dark at 6 30 7 7 it’s completely dark So if I go in winter there, it’s gonna be dark at 4 o’clock 4 30 is gonna be dark and people start going coming out from the office at that time So I will have no sunlight
Frederic Paulussen (53:34)
Okay.
aude (53:46)
So the only time of the year where I can actually go to that place to see the people coming out of the office are in the months of May, June, so that the days are longer and it’s not dark yet. It’s a golden hour, so it’s absolutely perfect. In terms of light, that’s the best light I can get. But I can only achieve that in the months of May or June. I can’t go in winter because it would be dark.
Frederic Paulussen (54:09)
No, and again, working with restrictions, in this case in daylight availability. I think that’s going to be the lesson of today’s podcast. And because I’m going to start wrapping it up here. So I think work with constraints is probably the most important one. So thank you, Aude for the time and insights. And of course, if anyone wants to follow her on Instagram or a website, I will link those in the description.
And of course also make sure to follow the podcast for other episodes and feel free to share this episode with friends who might be interested in the topic, who maybe needs to work with restrictions a bit better. And see you next time.
aude (54:52)
Thank you, Frédéric. Thank you so much.