CITY Issue 51

EXPERT OPINION A Conversation with Frédéric Lagrange Travel photographer Frédéric Lagrange has been roaming the planet, camera perpetually at the ready, for just six short years, but in that time, the French-born New Yorker has gained a reputation as one of the premier professional shutterbugs working today. “I had a love of travel before loving photography,” explains Lagrange. “Photography was just an excuse and medium to travel.” The regular contributor to Travel + Leisure, Conde Nast Traveller, and Departures first shared his stunning photography with CITY in the 2007 spring travel issue in a special 16-page portfolio that was recently on exhibit at BoConcept’s SoHo, New York, showroom. In this issue, he stays close to home, shooting a fashion story in upstate New York (see page 96) and serving as one of five judges for the One City, Many Destinations travel photography competition. Lagrange, enjoying a brief respite before heading back out on the road, spoke with CITY about the not-so-good feeling of ice breaking under his feet in Mongolia, warding off malaria in an Iranian rainforest, and the art of travel photography. CITY: It sounds like you have the best job in the world. How do you prepare for a trip? FREDERIC LAGRANGE: I spend about 250 days traveling abroad a year. I don’t have any particular preparation besides trying to remain healthy and fit to be ready for any kind of situation—whether extreme cold, heat, humidity, or trekking for a week at an altitude of 15,000 feet—as I don’t really know always what the next assignments will be about and where. It can be a comfortable assignment shooting a gorgeous model in a resort in the Maldives or it can be trekking in the heart of Iranian Jaya rainforest for a couple of weeks under intense heat and humidity, covered with mosquito repellent to ward off any risk of malaria, having to boil your water each time for drinking and cooking. The diversity makes everything more exciting. The luxury is to have the time to “watch” things happen and then just to trigger. I usually have one assistant with me, and I try to travel as light as possible in terms of equipment: a camera bag; a film camera with a few bodies when on remote areas so that if anything breaks, it can be changed and not be dramatically expensive; a tripod; and from time to time, a background or light. Are your travels usually personal trips or are you always out on assignment? I am usually sent on assignments, but once or twice a year I actually pick one story or part of the world with a particular point that interests me, and organize to shoot it to present it later on to a magazine. These are definitely the most interesting assignments and stories I shoot in terms of the image quality and intensity. How do you strike that balance between being a photographer and simply being a traveler? Can you ever experience a new place without thinking, “What’s the shot to get?” Even though I don’t take pictures all the time when I travel for myself, I always take mental notes of what I see, which could give ideas for a feature or story. In that sense, I never stop thinking and working. I don’t have a camera with me all the time, though. The interesting thing, which has become very real over the past six years since I started taking photos, is the switching mode I feel and go through when I decide or need to take photos. I mentally switch into another gear, a different pattern in which my brain works in term of images and story telling. At that moment, I become quite unaware of what is happening around me, as the focus is quite intense. What’s the secret to getting a great shot? Observing, trying to relax in the moment in order to fully grasp it. Then the image should reflect a particular moment, making the viewers invent for themselves whatever story the image is going to subjectively inspire and tell the viewers, creating their own world, then enhancing the visual intensity of the image with a strong and harmonious composition and graphicness. What are the best types of places to shoot? In travel, being as isolated and remote from human beings as possible. So where’s the craziest place you’ve ever shot? In the middle of a remote frozen lake in Northern Mongolia (see photo at right), standing near our heavy Russian jeep, and feeling and hearing the ice breaking underneath our feet and the tremendous hellish loud tremor of the ice breaking, realizing that there is no escape, feeling trapped. If it does break, we are dead, swallowed in the frozen depth, all of us and no one will ever notice or know it. The heartbeat I felt at this moment had a very particular intensity and feel to it that I had had rarely felt, realizing how close and easy life can be swept away within a quarter of a second. Frozen in place, observing what is going to happen, completely powerless, having a taste of what it can be like to see your own death coming… Do you have one golden piece of advice for the amateur travel photographer? I learn everyday, so I don’t know if I am the right person to give advice but with the little experience I have built, one of the biggest dangers in photography is to be so inspired by someone else’s work that you dismiss your own creativity and persona. Inventing, creating, and improving your own vision as a photographer, thus getting into unknown territories, still remains the biggest challenge. If you know where you are going it is not worth going. Walking on thin ice.

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of CITY Issue 51

Contents Letter from CITY Our Friends Action Wanted City Moment The City Life Fast Food Fit Field Trip The Suite Life Paint the Town Red Fresh Tracks After the Sunset One City, Many Destinations The Winning Photographer The Entries By the Numbers The Finalists Expert Opinion Amateur Hour Meet the Finalists Nowhere Man Dune Raiders Just Go Where To Buy It Socials Icon

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