New York based industrial designer, François de Martrin-Donos challenges himself every time he takes on a new project to strike a balance between creativity and art in his designs. As a cross-cultural industrial designer, his approach centers around the impact of his designs on users.
Fuelling his creativity, when François is not working, he finds time to take photos, using an old M3 Leica camera, his grandfather gifted to him. Capturing true images, he forgoes digital in favor of film (think brown negatives). As a natural creative, his mind continues to travel, finding inspiration in most whimsical things, captured through his lens. His mantra is a refreshing sense of clean images, he describes his approach to photography as rather “what to withdraw”, than “what to take”.
Catching up with him in Paris recently, we were fascinated by François’ views and followed him on his journey of photography.
"My name is François I am a designer but I also have a passion for photography. I have always been taking a lot of photos but mainly street photography this is what I like the most. It is the art of selecting what should be in the frame.
So it becomes a selection actually It is more about taking elements out than adding them. I think there are two types of skills. Obviously you have the technical skills such as the framing, the lighting, etc. However there is also the photographers ability to search for a scene to search for an event and this is important it is almost the skill of an explorer or almost like a adventurer in a way I particularly like MYKU watches for three main reasons. First for its minimalism there is no disruptive elements and this is the same thing is photography when you shoot you only want to keep the essential
Secondly for its noble materials the marble, the leather, the metal. And the third reason I would say is the uniquess of all the watches since every watch is unique because of its stone. It is a jewellery as well."
Mongolian wrestling, 2014
Maze, 2014
Cigar, 2016
Ghost, 2016
Cloud, 2016
Follow François on Instagram: @francois_dmd
Follow François on Tumblr: Grandpa's Leica
