A Biker’s World

A Photographic Exploration into the Diverse Faces of the Moto Clube Faro

France-based photographer and filmmaker, Jérôme Epaillard, has a love of faces; faces from all countries and cultures. His wife and collaborator, Teresa Machado, hails from south Portugal, very close to where the Moto Clube Faro Meeting takes place every year. From this, the seeds of a project have slowly germinated in Jérôme’s mind.

‘I had to find an axis, a style, as I did not know anything about the biker’s world at the time,’ Jérôme told us, ‘except from mass media, who are more often only interested by its “Dark Side”’.

In fact, Jérôme found that people were very open-minded about his project. Furthermore, they were very ‘nice people, proud of theirs Clubs, theirs leathers and what it represents.’

‘You do not know much about a culture if you do not enter it, alive with your body and soul, into this culture.’

Jérôme is now currently working on an architectural photography project with his 10 years old son. We caught up with him to find out more about his work.

The Plus: How does working on this project compare to your general photography style, which is quite varied?
Jérôme Epaillard: I like many photography styles; so for my personal work I think it is rewarding to confront myself with different ones. Creating your own recognizable style is the photographer quest! Things are quite different for my architecture commercial work as I try to keep my style “comprehensive” for clients.

TP: Why the black background?
JE: I wanted the viewer to see the bikers going out from the dark side most people think they are. Nothing but the Bikers.

TP: What is the collaborative process between you and Teresa like?
JE: Teresa helps me to have a more neutral vision about my work. For editing it is particularly interesting as sometimes you put too much into a picture that is actually not so good.

TP: Equipment of choice?
JE: I used a Nikon D800 with a 50mm lens. Strobes are from Elinchrom. I would have liked to make the FaceBike project with Medium Format Digital to get more depth on the portraits but it was a too much of an expensive route.