Gilles Larrain - Helen Guetary, Black and White See-Thru - Framed Picture 11 x 14

Gilles Larrain is a French-American photographer who believes photography is a way to “capture the landscape of the soul of a person.”

By taking a unique approach to photography, which includes creating his own lighting, managing the entire darkroom process, and always having subjects come to his personal studio space, Larrain has created acclaimed pieces of art since 1969. In 1973, Larrain published the highly successful photographic book, Idols, which presented portraits of transvestites.

Larrain has photographed notable personalities in a wide range of creative disciplines, including the dancers of the American Ballet Theatre, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Salvador Dali, Miles Davis, Sting, Billy Joel, Roberto Rossellini, Norman Mailer, and more.

Throughout the 1960s, Larrain was a pioneer in kinetic art, using air, smoke, light, inflatable structures, water and neon tubes as means of artistic expression. In 1963, Larrain traveled to Oaxaca to study in Monte Alban and Mitla, where he realized drawing was insufficient to capture everything needed for information — photography became the essential medium to ask the right questions and get the right answers. Here, Larrain learned to use the camera to create pictures that magnified emotions. From this point, he decided to become an architect of the image.