Aurélien Bigot / Richard Forestier | Abstract impressionist photography

A photo project titled "The Impressionist Windows" is the fusion between photography and painting, perfectly organic, without any editing. Photographer Richard Forestier collaborated with art director Aurélien Bigot to create “The Impressionist Experience”. The series tries to capture and turn real life into still images.

Bigot uses the key characteristics of famous painters: religious pose, antique drapery, etc.

“If we recreate scenes with those elements and shoot them with this special technique that imitates the painting texture, we can bring together Impressionist art and photography creating the first impressionist photographs. This will lead the observer to doubt, unsure if faced with a painting or not, eventually realizing that it is indeed an absolutely unedited photograph”, explains the artist.

In 2012, Aurélien was living in Singapore and began a project aimed to capture and transfer real life to still paintings. After studying, and experimenting different techniques, he created a method that combined reality based images with an impeccable impressionist finish without any editing. This project, "Impressionist Windows", received numerous international Awards including Spikes and Creative Circles, with honorable mentions in advertising festivals, art blogs, online creative awards, etc.

Returning to France in 2013, Aurélien still felt that this technique could be explored even further. He put together some references of classic painters (Rembrandt, Caravaggio, etc.) and extracted all the main characteristics reminiscent of their works: chiaroscuro, religious pose, naked chests, antique drapery, etc.