Workshop of Yves Saint Laurent. Photos Jacques Le Goff

Jacques LE GOFF, born on 12/17/1949, became interested in countless trades and techniques before becoming an inspector of technical education in national education. Very early introduced to photography, he made the choice to leave teaching to make his passion his profession. All of his interests and his never-tired curiosity allow him to approach all subjects without restriction and without prejudice: reporting, advertising, architecture, cinema, television, dance, portraits … Eclecticism could be a danger: no would lose their soul there. Jacques LE GOFF on the contrary builds his own by seeking to reveal that of his motives. People or things are treated with this attention, which a 17th century philosopher said was prayer: each photo helps it disappear before its subject. Its realism is not on the surface: it does not embellish, it does not make it ugly, it lets each thing and each person reveal the quality of their being: exterior and interior penetrate. It doesn’t matter whether the photo is of passion or of commission. Only the precision, the texture or the detail, the rigor of the composition or the line, the requirement of technical quality, especially in the printing of his photos, matter. From there, the photographer’s gaze is born: he does not construct a staging, it seems dictated by the subject himself. José BELIN