Known for their joyful and experimental approach to fashion photography Chaumont-Zaerpour collaborated with Rodebjer for the F/W21 collection campaign where we had the opportunity to see Rodebjer through their creative lens. We found out more about the dynamic duo, Agathe Zaerpour and Philippine Chaumont and their journey to discovering the world of photography!

– How did you meet?

We met during our graphic design bachelor in 2011 and we kind of became friends on the first day of school! Very early on we started to collaborate on all our semestral projects. We ended up graduating in 2014 with a common diploma, a book about the fashion industry in Kenya. It took us a little while and many projects before we figured out what we really wanted to do was photography.

– How much is intuition part of your work?

We’re both rather intuitive and impulsive! We get much better results when we let ourselves more freedom during the shoot! Things never go, nor look like you planned they would, and if your ideas are on stiff rails, you miss the accidents - the best things!

– Is imagination more important than knowledge when it comes to photography as a creative medium?

The more we work, the more we realize imagination and knowledge really rely on each other! When we were still students, we thought our ideas would come out of the blue from our genius minds! Now, we realize the importance of cultivating our references. Spending time in libraries and bookshops looking for photographs from the past, but also keeping up with what other photographers of our generation do, is fundamental to stay inspired.

– What’s the most fascinating and inspiring aspect of your work?

Within this fast and fun working rhythm, in which you must be efficient all the time, not lose a minute, there is the magic of the little accidents, the right ray of light, an attitude of the model, a cloud passing by, that just stops time for a fraction of second, and makes the whole day worth the stress!

– Why do you do what you do?

We both loved magazines and were very interested in clothing, but never really realized that what we really loved was the photos. Now, doing photography just feels so obvious and natural! It’s funny to realize that through longer paths, we still ended up doing what we were supposed to do.

#womeninrodebjer is our virtual home to all the voices that inspire us and that would like to share their story, any story, with us. Thank you Chaumont-Zaerpour for telling us your story!

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