Photographer Pierre Quintrand has a very particular eye. And he’s much in demand, in Marseille and far beyond. As a 14-year-old he was already snapping away, a Rolleiflex slung across his chest. His father was an architect (he says he “learnt to walk on building sites”) but he himself started in banking. His return to photography was a matter of chance: crucial encounters and events pointed the way to his vocation. In 2013, when Marseille had its stint as European Capital of Culture, he started photographing modern buildings (Mucem, CMA-CGM, la Marseillaise, Musée Regards de Provence etc), glorying in their verticals and curves and horizontals. Very quickly, his exciting photos opened doors for him. He started to get commissions for work on major local urban projects, most recently the redevelopment of the Renault-Michelet site and the North-South extension of tramway line n° 3. He was soon being invited to show his photos in galleries and other photo-friendly places. In Marseille, Corbusier’s Cité Radieuse is his favourite place: “technical, artistic, an inexhaustible source of work and ever-renewed pleasure.” Between these concrete walls, he spots some unifying element or telling detail almost every day. “I feel at home on every floor there.
Par Caroline Guiol
