Philippe Boutié — Paris + London.

I started commercial photography as an MBA student in San Diego.
Chasing the dream, I traveled from my home base of Ocean Beach to Mexico, Hawaii, Morocco… to shoot travel and surfing/windsurfing stories for sports and off-road magazines, in California and France — including Sailboarder Magazine, SURFER, Planche Magazine, Auto Verte.

After California, I spent two years in Guadeloupe, in the Caribbean, working for the French Ministry of Economy, surfing/windsurfing, and pursuing photography as my second job: evenings and weekends, I was the photo editor of Télé 7 Jours, the main magazine on the island at the time. I shot everything, from local celebrities (ever heard of Lucette Michaux-Chevry?) to rasta recording sessions. This let me build a wider portfolio, learn B&W printing, have several solo exhibitions, and expose the last available rolls of Kodachrome 64 in the West Indies.

After sailing back to France (yes, great fun), I moved up to a “real” job in marketing. Many years in advertising followed, building my own mid-size agency, winning creative awards but not shooting commercially anymore — commissioning photography instead, often from such awe-inspiring names as Ernst Haas (his famous Tulips for one of our British Telecom campaigns).

Today, I am shooting again for my own clients and my own pleasure:
Annual Reports, brochures, portraits, web/social… visual content for the oil industry, Big and not-so-big Pharma, software and b2b firms, start-ups, magazines including Masterchef Magazine and Ferdinand Porsche Magazine… plus the occasional wedding, concert, or Club event.