Over the last 20 years, photographer Jean-Michel Berts has worked on a number of very different themes. He began a “cities” project four years ago, in Venice. He has chosen black and white as an ideal medium for expressing his sensitivity in this area. His main sources of inspiration are Norman Parkinson and Karl Hugo Schmolz, to name but two.
These pictures involved a highly sophisticated technique and more than twelve months of preparation. Jean-Michel was intent on revealing all the subtleties, all the richness of the destinations he had chosen for this project. The shots were taken in the early morning or late at night, to meet specific lighting requirements. The artist has intentionally focused on man-made constructions, devoid of human presence, in order to allow them to “live”, to exist, in their own right.
Jean-Michel Berts is still continuing work on the city theme, today. His still-life pictures (from a former project) are available in Black Book magazines (USA), Condénast (international company) and Marie-Claire (France). If you ever come across a tall, blue-eyed guy, photographing the town in the early hours of the morning, who knows ? It may just be him…