I am Etienne CLOTIS photographer and director. I am passionate about images. I love to tell stories for 20 years already!

I am passionate about all forms of art, as a child, I did dance, singing and theatre, then I went back to the Conservatory to make films, but one day I fell in love with photography!

"Iconic" was born thanks to my passion for Marilyn Monroe, I find it extraordinary that someone who has died for years can still be so present in the collective culture.

One day I photographed a look-alike of Marilyn and it was the beginning of the creation of "Iconic". I partnered with a talented makeup artist, Joris Souris and a stylist who is passionate about her profession, Lucie Vervellea.

The challenge was to dive into the life of a character because it was not possible for me to just copy a photograph or a vague idea of the icon we wanted to photograph.

The goal was to get to know the character, to find my vision of his or her life! What period to represent? How to dress him or her? What’s gonna be recognizable? For that I read between 2 and 3 biographies per character, it takes a lot of time! But it was still an exciting adventure!

"Iconic" represents three years of work, it is now a book with more than 180 photographs inside. It is with this book that I got my Master's in photography and I am very proud of it!

You can check out the book here!