Olivier Meyer | |
---|---|
Born | August 22, 1957 |
Occupation | Photographer |
Olivier Meyer is a French photographer born in 1957. He lives and works in Paris, France.
His photo-journalism was first published in France-Soir Magazine[1] and subsequently in the daily France Soir in 1981.[2] Starting from 1989, a selection of his black and white photographs of Paris were produced as postcards[3] by Éditions Marion Valentine.
He often met the photographer Édouard Boubat on the île Saint-Louis in Paris and at the Publimod laboratory in the rue du Roi de Sicile. Having seen his photographs, Boubat told him: "at the end of the day, we are all doing the same thing...".[4] When featured in the magazine Le Monde 2 in 2007[5] his work was noticed by gallery owner Charles Zalber[6] who exhibited his photographs at the gallery Photo4 managed by Victor Mendès.
His work is in the tradition of humanist photography[7] and Street photography using the same material as many of the forerunners of this style: Kodak Tri-X black and white film, silver bromide prints on baryta paper, Leica M3 or Leica M4 with a 50 or 90 mm lens. The thin black line surrounding the prints shows that the picture has not been cropped.
His inspiration came from Henri Cartier-Bresson, Édouard Boubat, Saul Leiter.[8] His portrait of Aguigui Mouna sticking his tongue out[9] like Albert Einstein, published in postcard form in 1988,[10] and subsequently as an illustration, in a book by Anne Gallois[11] served as a blueprint for a stencil work by the artist Jef Aérosol in 2006[12] subsequently reproduced in the book VIP.[13] His photographs were exhibited at the Photo4 gallery in Paris in April 2008, and again in January 2010[14] together with photographs by Ralph Gibson.
In September 2012, the Dupif gallery in Paris held an exclusive exhibition of his work[15] to mark the publication of the book Paris, Nothing new.