Who can resist the dreaminess that is Ryan Gosling? Certainly not me—I mean, the man has his own internet meme for goodness sake (which obviously inspired this article’s title). So, the minute I saw Parisian-based celebrity photographer Antoine Doyen‘s contemplative Gosling portraits, I knew I had to share them. I quickly got in touch with Antoine to learn more about the shoot and the man himself.
Turns out, the assignment was centered around the Cannes Film Festival and was commissioned by the French publication, Metro (and then were later used in Sharp). Antoine has worked with Metro in the past, first shooting for them at the 2006 Cannes Festival when he was just getting started as an editorial photographer. Metro had initially liked Antoine’s (now defunct) African Cinema blog and thought he’d make a great addition to their photo team. So, they took a chance and hired him for to shoot both reportage footage of the festival along with portraits. “I’m still amazed they trusted me at the time, for I had very little experience, if any! But this is when I actually started being a proper portrait photographer.” Luckily, Antoine’s skills shown through and he’s been working with Metro, and many other clients, ever since.
For the Ryan Gosling assignment, Antoine was excited to be given complete creative freedom—told only to return with various horizontal and vertical portraits of the actor. However, there was a small issue—Antoine was given only approximately five minutes to complete the entire shoot, and to make matters worse, the day ended up being exceedingly bright,
It was almost too sunny a day—it was really hard to have Ryan look anywhere without blinking. We were on the Marriott Palais Stephanie’s terrace, and it was all white carpet, white furniture, white walls… making the sun reflection difficult to handle, topping the maximum power of my flash.
However, Antoine was able to get some great shots during his short, sunny time with Ryan. He describes the actor as both “quiet” and “cool” but also quite worn out. “I believe he was dead-tired like most of the people we shoot during the festival.” Despite this, Antoine enjoyed himself as he does on most actor shoots,
I’ve always been a movie buff – in fact, my first choice of career was becoming a film director—so I’m pretty into meeting those guys I like to see in a film! Besides, shooting celebrities puts a bit of pressure on your shoulder, since it’s always a good occasion to prove what you’re capable of in too few minutes.
You can check out more of Antoine’s portraiture and Cannes Film Festival photos on his website, antoinedoyen.net.