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Stealing Moments on Set with @simonchaudoir

To see more playful portraits, follow @simonchaudoir.

The Instagram photos of a fellow film director first inspired Simon Chaudoir’s (@simonchaudoir) playful, sometimes macabre, portraits. “For a long time I had the image in my mind of myself lying on a studio floor having been crushed by a falling lamp,” explains Simon, who leads a harried, globetrotting life directing music videos and commercials. “It expressed something that I felt about my working life. I realized that Instagram gave me the platform to explore such images.”

With filmmaking equipment and backdrops at his disposal, Simon crafts jarring photos that draw from elements of Renaissance paintings, surrealist photography and the avant-garde. “Way, way, back I studied Fine Art,” says Simon of his university years. “This was the first time since then that I had the pleasure of producing something purely for my own pleasure and amusement.”

“Sometimes when I accept a job, knowing the equipment that’s going to be used and the people involved, I’ve already conceived what the picture of the day will be,” he says. But the photos themselves tend to come together quickly. “All my pictures are taken in snatched moments when I am working for other people,” he says, “lunch-breaks, lulls in shooting or when we wrap.”