The pho­tog­ra­ph­er and direc­tor cap­tur­ing the mag­ic of cities after-dark

Cre­ator Sto­ries is a series in sup­port of the Adobe Cre­ator Col­lec­tive, a new col­lab­o­ra­tive hub intend­ed to inspire oth­ers. Here, Louis Dazy shines a light on his fas­ci­na­tion with doc­u­ment­ing the pos­si­bil­i­ty of night-time.

Louis Dazy comes alive after dark. The French pho­tog­ra­ph­er and direc­tor draws inspi­ra­tion from Neo Noir and ​’90s Hol­ly­wood, using his work to explore the mys­te­ri­ous pos­si­bil­i­ty of night-time in the city.

Dazy fell into pho­tog­ra­phy around six years ago, when he was work­ing for an adver­tis­ing agency. For him, it pro­vid­ed the oppor­tu­ni­ty for cre­ative respite. The result­ing work – in which por­traits, cityscapes and light­work min­gle freely – hones in on the fleet­ing enig­mat­ic moments that occur when the sun sets.

A mem­ber of the Adobe Cre­ator Col­lec­tive, Dazy reg­u­lar­ly shares the lessons he’s learned dur­ing this peri­od with the wider Adobe com­mu­ni­ty. As a plat­form, the col­lec­tive exists to inspire oth­ers, with Adobe them­selves pro­vid­ing free assets to fur­ther facil­i­tate users embark­ing on their own journey.

As far as Dazy is con­cerned, his jour­ney is only just begin­ning. Here, he reflects on the steps he’s tak­en so far, and looks ahead to what he has planned for the future.

When did you first get into pho­tog­ra­phy? Tell us about your journey.

I first got into pho­tog­ra­phy six years ago. I was work­ing as an art direc­tor in an adver­tis­ing agency at the time – I was bored and need­ed a cre­ative escape. Pho­tog­ra­phy felt like the per­fect medi­um to cre­ate mem­o­ries, so I start­ed doc­u­ment­ing my life with pho­tos of my friends, my trav­els, and any­thing else I expe­ri­enced day-to-day.

Film or digital?

Tough one! Both have their mer­its depend­ing on how you want to shoot, and what results you’re look­ing for. It’s easy to emu­late the aes­thet­ic of film with dig­i­tal post-pro­duc­tion, so per­son­al­ly I have moved on to dig­i­tal when shoot­ing for clients and com­mis­sioned projects — though some clients still ask me to shoot film specif­i­cal­ly. I feel like you shouldn’t stick with one, they both have pros and cons, what’s impor­tant is the final image and the cre­ative process, so make your choice accord­ing to that!

What’s your favourite film camera?

It’s the first one I bought back in 2015: the amaz­ing Nikon F2. It’s such a sol­id cam­era – I heard that pho­to­jour­nal­ists were using this mod­el dur­ing the Viet­nam War because it’s prac­ti­cal­ly inde­struc­tible. I‘ve dropped mine a cou­ple times on con­crete and it’s still work­ing per­fect­ly. What a camera.

Your approach to pho­tog­ra­phy is cin­e­mat­ic. Where do you draw inspi­ra­tion from?

Main­ly movies – par­tic­u­lar­ly ​’90s Hol­ly­wood and neo-noir films. I’ve spent so much time watch­ing movies. Inspi­ra­tion usu­al­ly comes to me at night – there’s some­thing about that I can’t real­ly explain. Every­thing seems slow-paced, there are few­er peo­ple in the streets, the city is silent – it’s just easy to let my mind wan­der and catch ideas at night time.

What is your cre­ative process when it comes to con­trol­ling light and to dou­ble-expo­sure photography?

At first, I made no attempts to con­trol light. I was just scout­ing the city and pin­point­ing loca­tions on Google Maps to go back to lat­er – places with neon or arti­fi­cial lights that would help me shoot por­traits in the streets at night. Then I bought a cou­ple of small LED pan­els that I now car­ry every­where with me. They’re very use­ful and can light any­thing with­in 15 metres.

The cre­ative process behind the light­ing in my pho­tos is main­ly try­ing dif­fer­ent angles and see­ing which one works best. There’s always the ​‘right way’ to light some­one accord­ing to the­o­ry, but by diverg­ing from that you can achieve very dif­fer­ent and equal­ly amaz­ing results. Once you know the rules of light­ing, it’s impor­tant to ven­ture away from them so you can find your own style.

Dou­ble expo­sures came very ear­ly on in my cre­ative process. It start­ed with a sim­ple mis­take on my film cam­era, releas­ing the film and shoot­ing again on the same frame, but I thought the result was neat so I kept shoot­ing dou­ble expo­sures reg­u­lar­ly. I even­tu­al­ly found what worked best for me, what I want­ed to shoot and the emo­tions I want­ed to cre­ate in my pho­tos. The cre­ative process I work to now – with dou­ble expo­sure – is find­ing a good loca­tion first, wait­ing for the right time of day to shoot it, and then, with that shot in my mind, tak­ing a good por­trait that’ll go well with it.

What tips would you give to aspir­ing photographers?

Explore, try, and don’t take pho­tog­ra­phy too seri­ous­ly – it’s about hav­ing fun, so enjoy shoot­ing! Don’t let any­one tell you what you should do, have trust in your vision and ulti­mate­ly shoot a lot. It’s the only way to learn and the more you shoot the faster you’ll become good in your own style.

What are some of the chal­lenges you’ve faced in recent times? How did you over­come those challenges?

I have recent­ly decid­ed to focus more on direct­ing films and music videos, which is chal­leng­ing. I’m still learn­ing but it feels incred­i­ble to start some­thing new and get to grips with dif­fer­ent tech­niques. How did I over­come this chal­lenge? I decid­ed to apply every­thing I’ve learned in pho­tog­ra­phy and trans­late it to directing.

What piece of work are you most proud of and why?

It’s hard to pick just one so I’ll pick my Neon Life series, I’ve been work­ing on it since 2016, it’s an ever-going series of dou­ble expo­sures por­traits with neons and it’s def­i­nite­ly some of the work I’m the most proud of because I’ve been doing it for a while now and it still feels rel­e­vant today.

The Adobe Cre­ator Col­lec­tive project show­cas­es the best new art, design and illus­tra­tion tal­ent week­ly, con­nect­ing artists with the wider Adobe com­mu­ni­ty. Want to be inspired? Vis­it cre​ative​cloud​.adobe​.com