Neil Snape, followed the path from amateur to professional winding up in Paris making advertising and editorial images for luxury goods brands such as Cartier, and Hermès. Technologies another passion that had him consulting with brands concerning digital imagery reproduction contributing to advancements for end users. Today he is concentrating on beauty photography, portraits, and fine art photography, and still consulting on colour management.
“Light, what it best brings to the subject”, is what Neil Snape aims for in all his photography domains be it still life, portrait, fashion, and beauty. Snape started out assisting a French photographer in his hometown of Vancouver Canada on his days off while working as an engineer. Quickly rising to the top in the advertising world allowed entry into other areas of work such as advertising film, which brings a wealth of experience forward to today.
Diversity in assignments gave Snape acquired skills in these specialties: hotels and architecture, food, still life, production with actors, and more. Being multidisciplinary has its advantages, yet the most influential references were his collections of European magazines. Visual passion had Neil Snape move to Paris in 1991, where he has been based ever since.
Surrounded by new visual aesthetics quickly made profound changes in his photography, setting off a unique style to making still life photographs. One magazine after another had Neil Snape contributing series and covers with a distinctive fresh look. Biba, Vogue Homme, Monde de Hermes, Madame Figaro, Marie Claire, all welcomed his style. Advertising agencies did the same on campaigns from Volkswagen to beauty giant L’Oreal.
Tapping into the digital forefront his endless experimentation opened up new areas not only in photography, but also as a consultant to photography related IT companies.
In 2006 Neil Snape returned to the very reason he came to Paris; to shoot beautiful pictures of women, fashion, beauty, or portraits. Developing a new style making powerful images with a modern approach, sometimes highly technical, others raw and extremely natural, Neil Snape produced award winning images for press and expositions since.
Fast forward to today where Snape is continuing to make strong honest pictures retouching to a minimum whether it be beauty, portrait, or fine art nude.
Snape often says “My next picture is always my best” has a new twist as it may well be moving pictures as Neil Snape moves to fashion films.
