About - Ivan Margot

Ivan was born in Lausanne, Switzerland, he gets his degree in Graphic Design & Communication from the ECAL School in Lausanne.

He currently works in Barcelona as a free-lance for several advertising agencies and spends most of his time researching and working on various projects related to street photography. He is especially interested in the concept of a more spontaneous photography that contrasts with the more methodical work of the graphic designer. Photos were the instant is the most vital. It is a more a physical experience, a state of excitement, a fight against reality. Always, as Saint-Exupéry wrote, "the essential is invisible to the eyes". To make visible the invisible essence of an instant. This thought could summarize what street photography is to me.

I come from the design graphic world and I am used to creating and transmitting concepts following the instructions of a client. All this work involves a well-structured script and a meticulous methodology where there is no room for much improvisation. It has been liberating to realize that in streetphotography there are no rules or strategies to ensure success. The secret is in oneself, intuition, letting everything flow until "that" precise moment in which you take the photo. In the street, places, people, light... are not static elements, they change constantly. You can't plan or search, they're just there for a very limited period of time. You find them. The decision of what you are going to do, how and when is yours and, must be made quickly. There is no time to think. That instant gives us some improvised images, more spontaneous although not exempt of a visual complexity that goes beyond the apparent simplicity of the place and the moment. It's also true, as a graphic designer, I can't stop thinking about composition, playing with shapes from color, shadows and light. In this sense, Harry Gruyaert is undoubtedly one of my greatest inspirations. He is the European pioneer of colour photography. Nothing in his images seems superfluous. Their composition always appears right. He makes colour the central element in the construction of the image. His sensitive, non-narrative and graphic chromatic approach to the world is radically new.

My objective is not to do a report. I don't want the idea of a concrete project to limit my creativity. I work more by intuition, looking for a potentially interesting place that allows me to be spontaneous. This is precisely my objective as a street photographer: to turn an ephemeral and unique instant into an eternal one.

HIS WORK HAS BEEN EXHIBITED IN SEVERAL INTERNATIONAL FESTIVAL SUCH AS:

- 2022 MIAMI STREET PHOTOGRAPHY FESTIVAL. MIAMI

- 2022 STREET SANS FRONTIÈRES. GALLERIE JOSEPH TURENNE. PARIS

- 2020 STREET SANS FRONTIÈRES. GALLERIE JOSEPH TURENNE. PARIS

- 2019 FESTIVAL INTERNATIONAL ARLES. GALLERIE HUIT. ARLES

- 2019 ATLAS OF HUMANITY. GALLERIE JOSEPH LE MARAIS. PARIS

- 2019 LONDON STREET PHOTOGRAPHY FESTIVAL. LONDON

- 2018 INTERNATIONAL PHOTOGRAPHY AWARDS STREET PHOTO

- 2018 SONY WORLD PHOTOGRAPHY, SOMERSET HOUSE. LONDON

- 2018 THE EYEEM PHOTOGRAPHY BERLIN FESTIVAL. BERLIN

- 2018 BRUSSELS STREET PHOTOGRAPHY FESTIVAL. BRUSSELS

- 2018 BARCELONA INTERNATIONAL PHOTO AWARDS. BARCELONA