Claire Guarry

OCEANFRONT

CLAIRE GUARRY

BY PATRIZIA MEZZANZANICA

In front of the ocean is where Claire Guarry, a French photographer based in San Francisco, lives and works according to nature, has her home.

What makes a self-taught artist special is, in our opinion, her ability to observe and imitate nature. Not a model, not a technique or the style of someone else but feeding a talent that she has inside (for painting, acting, shooting...) without conditioning and controls. Let nature, along with practice, forge a style.

Something like this must have happened to Claire Guarry, a self-taught photographer born and raised in a small village in the south of France surrounded by objects from the past because of her father who restored art and antiques. A serene and free childhood, in contact with nature. An imprinting that has led her to travel a lot and live in many countries, until she decided to settle in San Francisco, in a house facing the ocean and raise her family (which she often portrays in her shootings) in both physical and mental harmony with the environment.

In the interviews she said she always loved images, paintings and illustrations. She used to draw constantly as a kid and still today she modifies her pictures like she almost “paints” them, meticulously retouching the hues, the tones, the light, the grain. Photography, for her, is a never ending creative process starting from the second she presses the shutter to the last minimal adjustment.

Childhood, humanness, raw freedom, vulnerability and anti-conformism are the themes that characterize her photographic identity and the best way to express them is to always remain true to oneself. Do not try to adapt your work to what you think your audience or client or collaborator is likely to expect, but make sure that each project has something to do with what you already are. As she always repeats, quoting a famous proverb “Be yourself, everyone else is already taken”.

@claireguarry