“A yearning to slow down is very palpable in our society,” explains Florian Kazimirski in the book Minimalism in Photography (2022, teNeues). “We long for clarity and focus. For simplicity. For a moment of rest. Instead of constantly outrunning ourselves, we want to linger, to take a breath.” These are the conditions under which Guillaume Lavrut’s pictures have emerged. The French photographer and art director, based in Paris, harnesses the power of graphic reduction to draw focus away from the busyness of everyday life, and towards things that are often overlooked: a car’s smooth metal exterior, stacked plastic chairs, clothes pegs on a line, traffic lights changing from green to red. Lavrut has an eye for composition, picking out happenstance combinations of colours and objects. But he’s also a skilled portraitist, capturing models on the verge of anonymity – peeking around bright walls, eyes averted, telling a story without using any words at all. @guillaumelavrut

All images courtesy Guillaume Lavrut.