Close-up of Alex Vidal with curly brown hair, wearing gold earrings and a black blazer, looking away with a thoughtful expression.

Hi, I'm Alex.

A French photographer drawn to light, shadow, and everything that lives in between.

Dark image of assorted fruits and vegetables including grapes, apples, figs, and leafy greens.

It all started with someone else's photographs.

My grandmother kept albums the way some people keep diaries — carefully, a little obsessively, pulling them out at every occasion. Sunday afternoons, the smell of old paper, images of people I half-recognised. I must have been very young when I understood that a photograph isn't just a record of something that happened.

Simple comme un baiser — that's what a photograph is, when it's honest.

I came to photography the long way round.

Architecture school. Theatre. A few years in Québec. The stage as a comedian and director. I was - and still am - constitutionally incapable of doing just one thing.

But all of it fed the same hunger: to observe, to feel, to capture what a room holds before it disappears.

Before the camera, I learned to read a silence. To notice what a body says when words aren't enough. That instinct didn't go away when I picked up a lens — it became the whole point.

Black sticker with calligraphic characters.
A black and white photo of a couple kissing in front of a large window, with sunlight creating shadows on the window and floor.

I'm drawn to clair-obscur — the way light falls unevenly, the shadow that makes the brightness mean something. No flash, no studio perfection, no poses borrowed from a yoga manual.

I work on instinct. Closely. Quietly enough that people forget I'm there, and quickly enough that I don't miss what matters.

My images tend toward the poetic, the intimate, the slightly imperfect. I love a baby who cries, a girl who doesn't smile on command, a moment that spills outside the frame. That's not a flaw. That's life insisting on being itself.

Memories. Feelings. Art.

a photo of a couple in the water, floating on their backs, their heads resting on each other’s shoulders; he is kissing her on the cheek whilst holding her head
A jewelry ring with pearl drops and leaf-shaped gemstones resting on a shell, surrounded by white flowers in a small black dish on a wooden surface.
a close-up of a woman’s face, her eyes closed, her hair blowing in the wind, resting on her partner’s neck as they embrace

I'm hypersensitive, and I've stopped apologising for it.

For a long time I thought it was a liability. Now I know it's the whole thing.

I feel the tension in a room before the ceremony begins. I notice the way a father holds himself when he sees his daughter. I cry during vows — and still get the shot.

That sensitivity isn't a flaw in my process. It is my process.

I'm equally at home in muddy fields and candlelit ballrooms.

Trainers or heels. France, the UK, anywhere the story is worth following.

There's a touch of French sale caractère running through my work. I'm not looking for polished. I'm looking for truth — the freedom to move, to feel, to simply exist in front of the lens.

A few things worth knowing

enchantée