Gil Rigoulet began his career in the press in 1975, and in the early 80s became the first regular photographer for Le Monde, with whom he worked for over 20 years. In 1985, together with Henri Cartier-Bresson, he produced a Le Monde supplement, Portrait d’un quotidien, for the newspaper’s first “open house”.
In 1986, Robert Doisneau presented Gil Rigoulet’s photos in a portfolio for Photo-Magazine, and Christian Caujolle invited him to take part in the group exhibition and book “Vivre en maillot de bain” at the Deligny swimming pool, with Joseph Koudelka, Marc Riboud, Claude Nori, William Klein, Helmut Newton, Jean Loup Sieff, Jacques Henri Lartigue, Mary Ellen Mark, Franco Fontana…
For three decades, he collaborated with numerous national and international press magazines, including Géo, Grands Reportages, Elle, Sunday Times, La Républica, La Stampa and El Pais.
During this period, his work placed particular emphasis on the intensity of the gaze, the desire to move forward, to see and to show. For a man who immerses himself in the lives of others, his sensitive images take shape: rockers with slicked-back locks, kisses of love, photographers on the prowl, the body and water…
At the same time, he developed a body of work as a street photographer in Europe, North America and Asia…
In the 90s and 2000s, Gil Rigoulet developed his work on Polaroid 665, in black and white, playing with chemistry, solarizing negatives…
I get out of a plane, 18 hours flight, I put a bag at friends,
take the metro, the RER,
goes down to Luxembourg, late morning, the terrace of Rostand.
She’s waiting for me, a coffee, a tea,
I take a picture of her hair in the wind,
his eyes disappear,
another shot of her purple red lips,
the table, the cups, the teapot.
She doesn’t pay attention to the pictures,
I don’t know what to say to him,
it’s instinctive
I don’t think, my head frames, sees,
everything is so fragile, fleeting, as if the heart were in the eyes,
the moment is that wave that comes over the rocks and marries all the details,
the words are cordial,
burning desire,
two months that our words travel the oceans,
they have become more than narrow,
they are no longer enough.
Sydney was too far…
mages of an emerging intimate dialogue.
(…) The seasons are diluted in the years,
time is punctuated by breakaways, my films follow the passing of the days,
the images become more intense, freer, the camera is invisible, this visual dialogue belongs to us, a complicity between us,
with the certainty that it emanates a vision beyond photography,
an expression of the senses and of art that makes
this immutable daily life.
(…)
Vanished love.
The silence.
Images live. »
The full text is available in the book
Silence sketch published by the (M)
