Congratulations! Guy Le Querrec is celebrating his 80th birthday

There are few photographers of his generation for whom music and photography play such important roles as for Guy Le Querrec. His camera was the instrument he used, time and again, to approach and photograph musicians at festivals and concerts. A very special ‘sound’ seems to imbue all his images – a sound capturing a mixture of immediacy, humour and, above all, an interest in people and their stories. “My need for syncopated music, music that has to be improvised, is reflected in my way of taking photographs,” is how he compares his work with jazz, his preferred music style. It was portraits of musicians that initially brought him to photography, as a young man in the late fifties, before he actually decided to work as a professional photographer.

Le Querrec had already bought his first Leica some time previously. For a number of years, he photographed all over the world. Africa, however, was to be one of the main places for his photographic work. In 1969, while working as picture editor and photographer for the weekly magazine Jeune Afrique, he became interested in the continent's politics and culture – in particular the music. Numerous reportages testify to the temperamental photographer's passion. The musical background to his pictures is often recognisable. His unique performances during the Rencontres d’Arles are legendary: accompanied by the music of a jazz quartet, he projected pictures of musicians above the stage. It was a project that he first created in 1983, and then repeated in 1993 and 2006 – combining music and images in a unique symbiosis. Le Querrec sees scenes of everyday life as musical scores, orchestrated and realised by natural forces. “It challenges me to remain in a state of improvisation. I accept reality as a score in front of me that I’m trying to play, to improvise upon,” the photographer explains.

While we do not have a musical anthem with which to congratulate Guy Le Querrec, we do so with a selection of his rich body of work. They are favourite motifs, chosen by the artist himself. Merci et félicitations, cher Guy Le Querrec! 

Guy Le Querrec was presented in the Leica Classic segment of LFI issue 2/2016.