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Interview Urban
Distances vol. 3
Photograher Romain Laprade creates colorful silent urban scenes with very strong compositions. His latest work is now collected in the third volume of 'Distances', published by Yvon Lambert.
- Tell us a little about your background – what path led you to becoming a photographer, and to doing what you’re doing today?
I started photography when I was around 16. At that time, I was living in the countryside and going to college in a small city called Limoges. I was capturing things around me very instinctively: a street corner, a tree, a flower, landscapes, even portraits of friends. I remember loving photography from a very young age, especially travel images in magazines my parents used to buy, but also fashion advertisements. My mum took a lot of pictures during holidays, and I was always extremely excited to go to the lab to get the photos.
I studied graphic design, and my first job was as a graphic designer. Photography was always my passion, I did it for my own pleasure until some people started to take interest in what I was doing and encouraged me.
- This is the 3rd volume in your ‘Distances’ series, can you tell us a bit more about the idea behind the series?
The series collects photographs taken over the years, shaped by my interest in overlooked spaces. Across all three volumes, I present images that strip away distraction, leaving behind a sense of stillness and presence. The series captures moments that might otherwise go unnoticed, inviting the viewer to slow down and see space in a new way.
- Is there a particular focus or idea for this 3rd volume?
With Distances Vol. 3, I expand my vision of an ever-growing collection, further exploring space, form, and light. Featuring a majority of recent images from the past two years, along with select archival works, this latest volume deepens the dialogue with architecture and landscape, capturing new locations while staying true to my instinct for finding beauty in the overlooked.
Moving between sunlit coastlines, sprawling deserts, and quiet urban corners, Distances Vol. 3 captures the subtle relationship of structure and stillness across continents.
- Can you tell us a bit more about your process and way of working?
I don’t really have a process. I work with my instinct and follow it most of the time. Sometimes I go to a specific location because I really want to see it and shoot it. I can be attracted to a place because of the architecture, because I saw it in a movie or a book, or because someone told me, “This place is for you!”
- What does photography mean to you?
It means that I can not only remember a moment or a place I liked, which on its own is not enough, but I can also capture it forever, turning it into an iconic image that I can share with other people, in a book or an exhibition, hoping they’re going to feel the same strong feeling I felt when I captured it.
- Which camera and lenses do you use?
I mostly work with Canon and Fuji. The camera is just a tool: what matters is the eye. Lenses might be more important because they must translate the scale of your vision. I like 50mm, 70mm, 100mm, 200mm.
- Which other photographers, artists or creative people are you loving at the moment?
Since forever: Gruyaert, Leiter, Ghirri, Meyerowitz, Eggleston, Hockney…
© Pictures by
Romain Laprade