Finalists – Picto Fashion Photography Award 2026 : Jérémie Monnier

Biography

Jérémie Monnier was born in Rennes in 1993 and grew up in the Norman countryside, where films and literature first opened his perspective on the world. After moving to Paris, he studied cinema at Paris 1 University, earning a Master’s degree in film aesthetics. His thesis examined the transition from text to film through the collaboration between Joseph Losey and Harold Pinter.
Alongside this theoretical approach, he developed a photographic practice inspired by Vogue and the work of Irving Penn and Richard Avedon. After joining Gobelins School in 2016, he assisted fashion and still-life photographers before refining his visual rigor under Guido Mocafico. Since 2021, his practice has combined personal projects, editorial work, and commissions for fashion and beauty brands.

Teenage portraits

Teenage Portraits documents students from Évariste Galois middle school in Breteuil-sur-Iton, a small and isolated village in Normandy. Having grown up nearby, the artist observes a youth shaped by geographic isolation and economic precarity, portraying them through their faces and personal style.
Alternating between close-up portraits and scenes within the school, the series explores the codes of rural adolescence while echoing familiar archetypes—from the popular student to the punk or the nerd. The cinematic treatment of space, inhabited only by the subject, lends the images a sense of universality, where details such as tiles or chairs evoke fragments of a shared collective memory.
The photographed teenagers assert their individuality while reflecting a broader idea of youth. Neutral-background portraits emphasize distinct personalities through subtle variations, while recurring visual motifs reveal shared trends. The series unfolds through a dual movement: highlighting the specificity of rural youth while connecting it to a collective experience of adolescence.