Traverso and Cannes – a love story of many generations

The Cannes Film Festival is all about the glam, the stars, the new movies, and often people tend to forget that the ones that make it possible for us to see all that are the photographers. Some of them come to one edition and never come back, some of them fall in love with it and come back every year, but some of them live and breathe the festival, so much that they become a part of it.

There is no better example than the Traverso family. Auguste Traverso, an Italian x-ray specialist left all that aside, moved to Cannes and started pursuing his real passion – photography. His goal was to capture the glitz and the glam of art’s most awaited annual event– Cannes Film Festival. Generation after generation, the whole family seemed to be born with the same exquisite talent, capturing celebrities in their best, most beautiful moments. Auguste’s son – Henri, took over and later on his son, Gilles, became the main photographer of the family.

The secret to decades of perfect pictures? The Traverso family views photography as an art. As much as the Hollywood industry changed that and took the value of it away, they still believe that the best photographs are the ones that say something, the ones that make the viewer feel something.

Throughout the festival years, they had the chance of immortalising Brigitte Bardot, Grace Kelly, Elizabeth Taylor, Sharon Stone, Jane Fonda, Robert De Niro and the list goes on. Gilles recently revealed for The Guardian that it is not the same anymore – people want to get close up of stars, they do not allow celebrities any privacy and that has made them be advised to stay inside, to not show themselves, to not communicate with the audience and ultimately with the cameras. These days, celebrities arrive on the red carpet, smile, turn a bit and go inside. Before, Gilles recalls that actresses were much more playful with the cameras, actors were more willing to spend more time. They felt the freedom to do it, they did not feel the pressure of the perfect shot, the short timing and the uncountable amount of phones flashing at them to get an as-close-as-possible shot. Gilles also admitted that the digitalisation of the cameras played a role in this as well. Now pictures are being taken continuously and then one or two are chosen. When working with a film camera, every shot counts, so pictures take much more preparation and therefore, look much more exquisite.

However, Gilles is still a big part of the festival attending year after year, proudly representing his family. Who will be in his best shots this year? We’ll have to wait and see.

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Below you can browse through more pictures of the Traverso family collection.

Article by: Diana Iusco
Link to website – http://www.destray.com/