Stephane GABOUE a photographer I discovered thanks to my friend Marco de Rivera

Then I started my career as a freelance bilingual fashion writer, notably working for French Elle, WAD, Fantastic Man, CNN Style, Models.com, VMan, and Behind The Blinds.

I am currently a contributing editor at Nataal.

I’ve simultaneously worked as a stylist for several magazines, including WAD, Têtu, and Anthem Magazine, where I was the European correspondent in the aughties. I’ve been a lecturer at the fashion university in Lyon since 2010, and I’ve worked as a casting director and model scout since 2014. My client list includes Vivienne Westwood, Bernhard Willhelm, Faith Connexion, and the new French brand Cool TM.

I took photography lesson from 2013 to 2016 at the Ateliers des Beaux Arts in Paris, and my editorials have been published since 2015 in such magazines as Vman, Fucking Young, Models.com, Nataal, and Contributor.

Taking these photo lessons with the great photographer Pharoah Marsan has made it possible for me to do photo stories I had been wanting to do for years, but for which I couldn’t find photographers that shared the same vision. The “Bold” story, published in King Kong Magazine in 2018, was inspired by my memories of watching Florence Griffith Joyner with my mother during the 1988 Olympic Games. “La Balance”, published this summer in Nataal magazine, is a story inspired by boxing weigh-in sessions, something I had been wanting to do for years. I am also hugely inspired by the models I cast, some of whom I have been working with for almost 20 years.Sometimes I devote a whole story to a model, like I did with Maty Ndiaye for Contributor in 2017, but I also like these stories with huge ensemble casts. The weigh-in story featured 18 models.

I generally shoot between Europe and Côte d’Ivoire. I often shoot my stories over very long periods of time, even a year. I shoot very spontaneously. Sometimes a simple go-see can turn into a photo session.

I’ve been a huge fashion magazine and book collector for decades. I like figurative art a lot. Vintage African album covers are true gems. There are countless photographers that I admire , from Steven Meisel to Terry Richardson, through Helmut Newton, Diane Arbus, Robert Mapplethorpe, Bruce Weber, and Jamel Shabbaz. I also like the great portraitists Seydou Keita and Malick Sidibé. And I follow a lot of great young photographers, like Clifford Price King, Kader Diaby, Nuits Balnéaires, Lakin Ogunbanwo, Stephen Tayo. Kyle Weeks, or Karla Hiraldo Voleau.

I don’t have any particular ties with the sports world. I actually seldom watch sports. But many of my models happen to be into sports. And I greatly admire the discipline and total devotion of sportsmen.” Stephane Gaboue