French photographer Maxime Ballesteros captures candid moments in a world where sexual freedom and exploration is celebrated and commonplace. Many of his analog images provide glimpses of only a fraction of a scene—a pair of legs in suspenders, or the intimate proximity of bodies in a bath—nonchalantly shot from the hip, as he follows his protagonists to wild parties, into private apartments, to the early morning beach. Little wonder that fashion and lifestyle magazines such as Purple, Numéro, Vice and 032c scramble to recruit the photographer. His debut book, Maxime Ballesteros: Les Absents, gives readers a unique view of the gritty, flawed, raw and sexualized world that exists around us.
Maxime Ballesteros was born in Lyon, France, in 1984, and has been based in Berlin since 2007. His photographs have been featured in solo and group exhibitions in France, the US, Belgium, Russia, Germany, Great Britain and Denmark.
Caroline Gaimari is Fashion Director & Executive Editor of Purple Fashion Magazine.
John Isaac is an Indian-born, award-winning photographer and author who has lived in New York City for the better part of his career and life. In addition to being known for his work as a photojournalist for the United Nations, he is also known for his independent freelance work photographing celebrities, including Audrey Hepburn and Michael Jackson. More recently, he has been working mainly in wildlife and travel photography.
