Incubus’ Choice: Close-up on Jam Abelanet

What message(s) do you want to express through your work?

I do not claim to express a message through my photos. For that series, I just wanted to play on the theme of distortion. Distortion of stylistic codes, of places, of situations. On top of it, shooting with no authorization, with the stress of being caught.

Which artists inspire you? Who are your masters?

There are few photographers of whom I admire the whole production in an unreserved way. Someone like Newton on the other hand has that incredible particularity of having really opened so many doors in a lot of different styles. His photos were not perfect, but he was the first one to have those ideas, which have been widely repeated by others or taken further technically by Mondino, LaChapelle…
I am not necessarily inspired by artists, rather by images gathered here and there, images that could be a start point for a new series or that could echo another idea.
Now with the internet, we have access to a huge panel of more or less amateur photographers. They sometimes do better pictures than professionals, and a good idea is sometimes enough to start a series…

What have you gained by being on the internet?

To be in touch with more people, more models, more photographers, and to realize how much smaller the world is compared to that we thought of it!!

Has your work ever been censored? If so, how did you deal with it?

I have not faced censorship. But with that series, I should prepare myself!! I prefer not to think too much about it yet…

What projects mean a lot to you at the moment?

To complete my underground fantasies and to try to make a book out of it. I have other projects in preparation, nothing really tangible yet, I can’t manage too many sessions at the same time.

Could you tell us a few words about the place you live/work in?

I like the subway as everybody spends a good share of their time in it (at least Parisians), and nobody pays attention to it, whereas there is a real story under there, incredible places, magnificent lights. Commuting is so much shorter when we take the time to look around!! We must rehabilitate the ordinary!!

Close-up on…