In the Spotlight | Sylvain Norget

This week for our In the Spotlight series we catch up with French photographer Sylvain Norget who, in addition to his beautiful portraiture, has a curious aversion to and obsession with rabbits.   We figure you’re all out there carousing with the same springtime fervor as the furry little beasts, so what better time to share the work of this budding photographer.

Hi Sylvain, it’s great to get a chance to share your work.  Before we get there, though, tell us a little bit about yourself and where you’re doing your art. 

I’m 34, living in Bordeaux, in the southwest of France, next to the ocean!  I was an interior designer for 10 years, then a model.  Now, I’m a professional photographer. I work and live in Bordeaux but I often go to Paris.

NSFW IMAGES & INTERVIEW POST JUMP.

What’s Spring like in France?  Is it as beautiful and romantic as legend suggests? 

Spring, next to the ocean is just paradise … the light is perfect, the day is longer.  It’s not too hot, there is a just a little wind … Bordeaux is an amazing city, small but not too small, great architecture, it’s like a small Paris — really small; it’s a quiet place. The city is about 50 km from the ocean.

After working as a dancer, model and interior designer, what led you to devote your time to photography?

I wanted to change my life. I needed something else – creation, certainly. I had the opportunity to change. I began to make self-portraits, then little by little to photograph the others. When I was an interior designer, I met one day Helmut Newton. This man changed my artistic life.  Of course he was that amazing photographer, but he was also a humble man.  There’s a quote from him that I love. “Some people’s photography is an art. Mine is not. If they happen to be exhibited in a gallery or in a museum, that’s fine. But that’s not why I do them. I’m a gun for hire.” We had the opportunity to talk about photography, art and life and I learned so much.

How would you define your photography’s aesthetic? 

My work is simple. I have no messages. I just love doing pictures. I love people; I love faces. My pictures don’t tell a story – you can imagine one for sure, but it’s not my point. I just want to photograph …

I’m especially interested to know more about The Naked Rabbit Project.  How did that start and what message are you trying to convey with that series?

TNRP is my personnal work; it’s a nude work. It’s about a phobia, my rabbit phobia. One day I found a rabbit mask, a scary one, and just like that, I decided to do self portraits with that “fear” … I enjoyed it. Being naked in that series came later … I guess I found a way to fight back and overcome my rabbit fear, wearing nothing but the rabbit mask.

Any other personal projects underway or should we expect to see more of TNRP for a while? 

TNRP will come as a book soon, and after that … I’m super hero fan .. maybe I will imagine one :-)

Thanks and best of luck! 

Click to visit Sylvain’s official website or his personal photography blog (with The Naked Rabbit Project, perhaps NSFW).  For other great photographers featured in our In the Spotlight series, search our archives.

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