#3 | Marion Colombani, Photographer of the present moment
Welcome to POING FORT, the podcast that will give you the weapons of self-confidence. In this first season, 10 guests take off their masks to talk to us frankly about the failures and doubts they had to overcome to achieve their ambitions.
In this episode number 3, I have the pleasure of meeting Marion Colombani, a gentle and sensitive photographer who takes pleasure in capturing the most precious moments in her clients' lives.
Passionate about visual arts since her early childhood, she navigated with difficulty between the expectations of those around her and the universal question "what am I going to do with my life?". Everything changed the day she discovered photography and the world of weddings; a field perfectly in line with her love for flowers, beautiful materials and travel.
I hope that this meeting with Marion will transport you to a world of gentleness and sensitivity. She will tell you that life puts opportunities on your path that you must know how to seize.
Margaux: You were telling me that your parents had high expectations. How did you deal with that? How did you build yourself?
I think it pushed me more than anything else and I was very complimented on the fact that I was someone curious, very independent, it came up often. And it's true that there were a lot of expectations but I was also very pushed. It was still quite benevolent. But it's true that there were a lot of things that I didn't see myself doing. Higher education, and what it potentially led to, didn't interest me. Doing Sciences Po, I didn't see the purpose or the point of it.
Margaux: Today you work for big brands and you also have a wedding business. How do you find a balance between the two? What is the nature of your activity as a photographer?
It's true that I do a lot of weddings, because I realized that I liked capturing things rather than staging them. When I started school, I wanted to do fashion because that was also the image it conveyed and we were discouraged from doing anything else on the side, because it was frowned upon. If you wanted to work with big brands, you needed a bit of prestige, you couldn't do weddings. Or at least, you had to hide it. And it's true that I quickly took on a bit of the counter-foot of this thing, saying to myself: I like marriage, there's no reason for me to hide it. It's not shameful. It's true that it's something I like doing and now, for the past two years, it's really been my main activity.
KIRA EAR SCULPTURE - KIRA EARRING
Margaux : You were telling me that apparently, we expect a man to photograph this kind of event, have you faced sexism throughout your career?
Yes, it's little things, but for example , you often have the cliché of the uncle who comes to see you at the wedding to teach you a little bit how to use your camera. People often come to see you to talk to you about equipment or to tell you: "There's a great photo to be taken there, you should go!". In this case, you say yes, and then you don't do it. It's always men, it's never women who allow themselves to make this kind of remark.
Margaux: Is there a topic you would like to explore further?
I've talked a lot about the fight against sexism. But if there's perhaps one point that bothers me , it's always this thing about ageism and the representation of women past a certain age. That really needs to change. I see women I know, who are my age and who are in commercials where they play mothers of teenagers who are supposed to be 45, 50 years old. It's never women of 45, 50 years old who are on screen. There's always this thing of: the woman must be young and if she's not young, she's a bit outdated .
I see it when I shoot. A person who is 35, 40 years old, if she has little flaws on her face, little marks, little things, she will ask me to touch them up, whereas for me, my DNA is to do very natural things. And it 's true that as soon as we see little flaws that we are not used to seeing on screen or in photos, it immediately bothers us. I would like that to change. But it's a bit like the snake biting its own tail, because it's difficult to find women who let themselves be photographed as they are from a certain age.
Discover the episode of Marion Colombani
