Bruno Bertrand-Frezoul, b. 1970, began instrumental apprenticeships in 1991 with French photographer Lucien Clergue and Serge Gal, founder of the photography school Image Ouverte. Also influenced by Ansel Adams' Zone System, Bruno began to manipulate his black-and-white negatives directly in the darkroom with paint, scratches, and burns, sometimes from a lit cigarette.
Seduced by the experience, scratching has since become his trademark. Through this brutalization of the negative, and especially in his images of New York, the grittiness of the city is underscored, evoking a vintage, timeless sensitivity to life in the metropolis.