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Ana & Max
@et_voila__
Photographers based in France
A few years back, we were questioning our lives and our ideas about the future. Questioning ourselves and how we were actually feeling. The situation in which we found ourselves, for each of us individually, didn’t convince us anymore or at least, it was not what we were dreaming about. So from one day to another we said “Let’s go! We buy a van, sell everything superfluous, quit our jobs and leave our apartment.” Our time living the “van life” has changed our lives, literally.
"We left when we were quite young (20 years old), with no objective but discovery."
Most of our relatives reacted positive, but some did not really understand our decision. It was discouraging to hear comments like “you will never keep up”, “you are going to separate after a month”, “and what are you going to do next?”, among many others. But overall, most relatives supported us, especially our parents. They understood that this travel was a search towards oneself. We wanted to wake up this unknown part that lies somewhere deep within all of us. There was no special pretension behind this big step, no political or environmental ambition or any other virtuous value that drove us.
"Simply the desire to discover, explore, and confront ourselves with a different reality; it was purely spiritual."
We literally detached ourselves from the world, from current constraints, time, social pressure, basically everything. Hiking, talking, photographing, eating and finding a place to sleep were our only daily objectives. This experience – going back to basic – stimulated growth, led to introspection, to the questioning of the world, of others, of oneself. It was a necessary retreat. Today it allows us to put things into perspective, not to panic at the slightest obstacle. It’s sort of our “miracle cure” for anxiety, fear, stress and hardship.
"Without doubts, this was the best experience ever. We have lived so many unforgettable moments."
Travel made us so much more creative in so many ways, it totally placed us ‘out of the box’ and saw so many opportunities. When you are not at home where you have all the luxuries you need to facilitate anything you can imagine, and you don’t have a stable income that will surely arrive on your bank account by the same day at the end of each month, you constantly encounter situations you have to solve and rethink, finding new methods and setting new standards of comfort. When we were in Scandinavia, for example, everything was quite expensive for us. As we had a small budget; every day was a challenge. So at some point we just started fishing ourselves; pure happiness and fun!
"Each day, we ate our personally catched fish; a big mackerel, freshly caught and directly grilled on the barbecue! It was our daily life for many months, and believe us, it changes you forever."
Our passion for photography definitely derives from that road trip. We did not have much else to do during this big trip apart from hiking and photographing. Both turned into our favorite thing to do. Capturing moments of life and landscapes were essential. We wanted to come back with souvenirs, stories to tell… Photography is a perfect tool for that. Max had a Nikon d3100, but photography was just a hobby among many others before we started this trip. It became a passion along the way. The more time passed, the more photography became central in our travel. We also felt an increasing desire to express ourselves creatively, so we invested in a new camera, a D610 that is still with us today.
After having lived together in a van for almost two years, we couldn’t and wouldn’t want to just go our own ways. It was hard to imagine a life separate from each other, even professionally!
So building something to work on together was evident for us. It didn’t take long until we made the connection between our increasing passion for visual creation, joy in traveling and our growing Instagram account with each other; the opportunity that was right in front of us. We wanted to try to live from photography, make it a profession. Together. That is how Social & Visual started. This love for visual creation – and in a more romantic sense – for each other, were totally nourished by our first travel and van life experience together. It’s what characterizes our situation and what makes it so original.
"We like to break the rules, mix up the traditional way of thinking and doing and be original in our approach."
Video and photography are tools of communication and that is often forgotten. Sometimes the content on the Internet or social media is quite impersonal; that is not our way of communicating and that is exactly what we would like to show to others. We think about our audience, having storytelling as a primary objective together with originality and differentiation. We believe that this is what keeps pushing our creative mind.
Creativity is the most important aspect of our work, whether we use video or photo. We don’t have a preference, it really depends on the project we want to do and which tools we think are the best to use for that particular project and goal. As said, we started with video and photography as amateurs with a D610. Now we are more up to date and we have shooting kits with the usual necessities. For photography, in general we have a preference for Nikon. We have been working with it for many years and we are very satisfied.
"On the video side, we like the idea of being "nomadic" and versatile. So we work 60% with a GH5 equipped with metabones to be able to meet the objectives of all brands."
We also have a color palette, a whole range in the broad sense of editing which is important to us. We systematically apply it to our own photo and video projects and even sometimes to those for our customers. It is very rare that a client rejects our artistic touch. The best are of course the travel projects, it’s a blessing to be able to live of this type of deals; traveling the world, encountering different cultures, tasting the unknown… Currently we are working on a project within tourism. We already have several episodes in mind but we keep it secret for now.
"It’s an ambitious project, so we don’t want to rush it and think it through very well instead."
"Our thirst to create is infinitive. We always have so many ideas and are excited about a million of things."
Producing a first short film, supporting environmental causes through image, making a documentary about gastronomy… In short, full of projects that just need to be realized. The feeling of freedom is certainly our main source of inspiration. This feeling of having wings, regardless of the context and the place. Whether it is for “Social & Visual” or for “Et Voilà”, as long as we have freedom, our creativity and therefore our inspiration will not be restrained. Finally, everything depends on the freedom granted to our shots.
"With everything that we create, we want to convey emotion, but which one exactly we don’t know. That is the magic of this craft; everyone sees something different, everyone understands something different."
Maybe that ‘poetry’ could summarize the majority of our photos. We often get this feedback from others. However, to be philosophical, in life as well as in photography, everything is about perspective. Depending on the point of view, the conclusions are not the same. If there’s something we learnt since we began photographing it is looking at things from different angles. Practicing photography resulted in having a more refined vision of the world and has greatly stimulated our curiosity. It also forced us to question whatever surrounds us and made us more aware of details. This not just affected us as a photographer, but also as a person. It totally changed how we are looking at the world. We both got much more curious and much more appreciative about our environment.
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