Arnaud De Grave (a.k.a. mostly Hern42) came rather late to photography, like everything he does nowadays. Before that he was busy being good at school, or rather he was not enough of a rebel not to be… But the times, they are a-changing, as one says. He became interested in photography because he was not good enough in skateboarding, starting both around 2000 at the age of 25, which is, he knows, rather very late. So that kills the usual myth of having been given an ancient camera by one’s father at age five and never looking back again. However he was indeed offered his first “real” camera by his father, albeit at a later time. Then started a long progression of travelling and shooting and collecting older and weirder cameras, buying more and more films and exposing them.

Getting more and more addicted to producing images which would fit within whatever fancy he got inside his ever oh-so fastly (ghastly?) changing mood. He created many things in order to have more opportunities to perform photography: the French association BOP, the Copenhagen based group CCCP (which stood for “Color Climax Copenhagen Photographers”), etc.
He prefers rather long projects based on travelling and social behaviour in the gonzo way (in reference to Hunter Thompson but without too much of the drug intake, not the Muppet Show…)