Thierry Van Biesen on Fstoppers

thierryvanbiesen.com

Born in Beirut in 1965. At 10 years old, the Lebanese civil war broke out and changed my life dramatically. In order to survive the horrors all around him, I suppressed the violence and developed a way of seeing that was unusually optimistic and uplifting.

In 1989 New York I assisted prestigious photographers Ralph Gibson, Sarah Moon, Duane Michals, Art Kane and Arthur Elgort. They gave me insight into their mastery and inspired me to think about my own visual style.
In 1997, I moved to London to “play with the big boys". The realm of fashion photography offered me the opportunity to start cultivating my personal style. The recognition that my fashion photography brought me attracted worldwide advertising clients including SONY, AMAZON.COM, FIAT cars, SOCIETE GENERALE, GUINNESS, CASTELBAJAC PERFUME, ISSEY MIYAKE, KATE SPADE, MACY’s, OLD NAVY, NEIMAN MARCUS, SHINSEGAE department stores in South Korea
and CLUB MEDITERRANEE.
In 2000, my work was exhibited alongside Guy Bourdin, Patrick Demarchelier, Steven Klein, Nick Knight, Peter Lindbergh, Herb Ritts, Paolo Roversi and 50 others as part of the group exhibition “ARCHEOLOGY OF ELEGANCE” at The Hamburg Museum Of Modern Art.
In 2013, I was named fashion photographer of the year by the American Society of Media Photographers.

Convinced that those who change the world for the better are the dreamers, not the cynics, I continue to create imagery that vibrates with joy, movement and poetry.