From Lot-et-Garonne to the Cannes Film Festival, the incredible journey of photographer Yann Rabanier

Rhinestones, sequins, he only comes into contact with them for ten days a year, and then again… In Cannes, Yann Rabanier’s days are often reduced to a succession of set-ups and photo shoots, running from side to side. The rest of the year, the portraitist spends it at the opposite extreme: in the countryside of Saint-Astier-de-Duras, in the north of Lot-et-Garonne, where he and his little family have set down their suitcase in 2019. A calm that contrasts with his former Parisian life, in the tumult and pressure.

His father would have preferred him to be a lawyer after his schooling in Marmande. Young Yann rather has an appetite for drawing and music. It was his mother, a civil servant in the town hall and the city’s culture department, who encouraged him in this direction. At the Faculty of Visual Arts in Bordeaux, he “scratches” on the turntables during broadcasts recorded on Radio Campus on Friday evenings. One of his teachers fascinates him, as do the ethnology classes. He discovered photography late in life. “The support was playful, framed. At the beginning, I wanted to do reporting, walk around and take pictures,” says the Marmandais. Which quickly came up against reality.

First step with De Niro

“One of my teachers told me that to break through it was better to have an average photo of a famous person than a good photo of my cousin,” smiles the person concerned. Never mind, more motivated than ever, he scours the concert halls of Bordeaux and Toulouse and cinema previews to build up his book. San Severino is there. Luck smiled on him when the newspaper “Libération” noticed him in August 2007. “At the time, the daily had students do the back cover. After my photo of skater Lucas Puig, they kept me for freelance work. »

A key contact in the photo department of “Libé” ordered him to take photos of the socialist primaries in 2011, Fashion Week and Cannes. During his first portrait on the Croisette, Yann Rabanier came across… Robert de Niro. “I had twenty seconds for four photos of him. It’s surgical: in ten days, you can make up to 200 portraits, whereas usually, you do one or two per week,” recalls the forty-year-old, who still makes sketches to put his ideas on paper.

It is then up to his agents to resell his photos throughout the world, like that of Fassbinder, an order from the newspaper Le Monde, taken up by Vanity Fair, among others, and which allowed him to put butter in his spinach for a certain time .

The Marmandais also liked the shooting with Chiara Mastroianni or the rendering of Éric Cantona, even if it remains difficult for him to judge his work. “I’d rather listen to my wife’s opinion!” Otherwise, it’s more the memories of the shooting that are nice,” confides the latter. Memories that he will have to put aside during his final selection, in order to best respond to his orders.

Among the most significant encounters of nearly twenty years of career, he readily cites the Iranian director Mohammad Rasoulof, immortalized in 2015. “The first time I took a photo of him at the festival, he was locked up in prison at his return to the country. I photographed it again this year and we talked again about the time that passed between these two moments. He is a person who cares about human beings. I have a rather Care Bear vision of the portrait, for me it is a triangular between the camera, the photographed and me. »

A first film

His practice has evolved in this area over the course of experience. “Before, I arrived with lots of ideas and lots of objects. Now I trust myself more and I leave room for improvisation. » The hidden side of the portrait is undoubtedly editing, which represents a large part of his work. The man doesn’t just take photos of celebrities: his images of nursing home residents have also covered the facade of the retirement home. At home, there are only family portraits, which are discreetly framed on a chest of drawers.

After having signed the cover of Emilie Loizeau’s latest album, Yann Rabanier will add a new string to his bow since he will start, at the beginning of 2025, the filming of his first film, in Tunisia, far from the tourist complexes. A country where his grandparents came from.