About

Vincent Alvarez began his artistic career in music as the guitarist of the Parisian metal band Magoa, with whom he performed for nearly a decade.

His deep passion for music and the performing arts became a guiding thread that later inspired his approach to photography.

He started his photography career in 2019.

At the same time, he developed a love for analog photography, drawing inspiration from the works of masters such as Irving Penn and Helmut Newton.

Tired of the oversaturation of fleeting images that defines our era, he gradually adopted an artistic approach centered on slowness and thoughtful reflection to truly capture the essence of each moment.

This process allows him to fully reconnect with the present, one shutter click at a time.

Exhibition

The TRANSFORMISTES exhibition is back!

Discover a series of 19 photographs, including 8 never-before-seen works, capturing the final evening of the legendary cabaret Chez Michou.

📍 Saint Guillaume Church – Strasbourg

📅 September 21 – November 23

After ten years on stage, I encountered photography.

What I now pursue through images, I first explored through music.

I simply changed instruments, but the quest remained the same: to vibrate.

To capture the moment, like a note held just a little longer so it truly resonates.

Along the way, I became passionate about film photography. In a world saturated with fleeting snapshots, I chose slowness and intention. Each release of the shutter became for me an inhabited gesture, fully anchored in the present moment.

It is not a simple mechanical act but a genuine quest: to learn how to look differently, to grasp that fragment of time that slips away when one seeks to accumulate images rather than build them.

In 2016, I joined the team of the legendary cabaret Chez Michou as a sound and lighting director. That’s when I discovered the backstage world—the meticulous crafting of every act. I designed the music edits, the lighting, but above all, I met the transformists.

Eight years spent behind those curtains forged deep bonds and shaped a different gaze. I learned that the purest emotion does not always play out before the audience, but often just minutes before stepping on stage.

That tipping point when the artist fades to let the character emerge. It is this transformation that I would later seek to capture.

Then came June 30, 2024.

That date marked the final performance of the Michettes revue after 68 years of existence. The end of an era, of a family. At 80 rue des Martyrs, nothing would ever be the same. It was impossible for me to leave this adventure without immortalizing the event.

That evening, I did not walk into the dressing rooms as a director, but as a photographer.

Time was limited: the length of the show, nothing more. At first, I took a few digital shots, perhaps out of fear of missing a detail but eventually I chose to change rhythm.

I switched to medium-format film, only ten frames per roll. As the evening unfolded, it became an invitation to slow down, to take the time to feel. I sought to capture the truth behind the makeup, that raw emotion the artists felt before stepping onto those boards one last time—boards that had defined their lives for so many years.

I left with two rolls of film. Two rolls containing the final heartbeats of this legendary place. The photographs you will see here are not of the show itself, but of what makes it possible.

To remain true to my process, the eleven analog prints presented here were developed in the darkroom by the expert hands of Thomas Consani. The exhibition is completed by eight unreleased digital photographs, unveiled for this second hanging.

My thanks go to Eva Carlton, Fabien, Aharoan, Tristan Choquet, and Victoria Pons, whose trust allowed me to capture the intimacy of this final curtain call.

Welcome backstage, into a fleeting instant.

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