Gilles Mingasson grew up in Grenoble, France, before moving to Paris to pursue photojournalism. After he was sent to the U.S. on assignment, he traveled through Latin America before making Los Angeles his base.
In 1990, Mingasson headed East and spent 6 months bicycling 7,500 miles across the Soviet Union, with 2 cameras and a serious saddle rash. On the eve of profound changes few of them had yet to grasp, Mingasson photographed ordinary people who had lived their entire lives under the Soviet state.
Today, Mingasson shoots news, social trends, environmental portraits, travel features, and works on social issues, through assignments, personal projects and long term documentaries. Mingasson shoots 35mm and medium format, both digitally and with film. He speaks English, Spanish and French. Assignments have taken him to Asia, Australia, Latin America, Europe, India, the Caribbean, and North Africa.
In 2005, Gilles Mingasson's work on Latinos in the U.S. won an American Photography Award, and in 2006, his pictures of an Eskimo village threatened by climate change were featured in the International Center of Photography's second triennial show, Ecotopia. In 2007, his work on global warming is part of a United Nations exhibit opening in Oslo, Norway, and traveling to Brussels, Monaco and Chicago (2008).
Mingasson is a freelancer, and a member of Getty Images' new boutique agency, Orchard by Getty Images.
Clients (partial list) : National Geographic Books, Newsweek, Fortune, The Smithsonian, Scholastic, Reader's Digest, Le Nouvel Observateur, Sky, L'Equipe Magazine, VSD, Le Figaro Magazine, Reppublica Delle Donne, Discovery Channel, VH-1, AOL, HP, Advanced Bionics, Global Education Fund, and Unesco.
Exhibits & Publications (partial):
Film documentaries include:
The Executioners (a 52 min. film on people who apply the death penalty in the U.S.), for Capa and France2, Co-author, 2003.
The NASCAR Dads, for France2-Envoyé Spécial, Co-author, 2004.
© Gilles Mingasson
All rights reserved