Laurent Hou’s interest for photography comes both from his passion for painting and illustration at large, and from his interest in society. He therefore enjoys different types of photography. He enjoys taking pictures of artists and different types of show (concerts, dance, theatre, shadow theatre…).

    He served as the official photographer of the French embassy in China for Croisements Festival in 2014, when China and France were also celebrating their 50th anniversary of diplomatic relations. It was the opportunity for him to shoot prestigious artists and to collaborate with some of them such as the soprano Julie Cherrier or GuoGan, the erhu master. The embassy exhibited his work in its walls for the closing ceremony of Croisements and for the French national day. Laurent Hou’s works were also exhibited in the French Cultural Center in Beijing and then at HIYEAF festival in Haikou. China Post used one of his pictures of GuoGan (shot in the church La Madeleine in Paris) to make a postcard and a stamp.

    Laurent Hou has a deep interest for Chinese society, and especially for the way tradition and modernity interact. He has therefore been practicing street photography as much as he could during his free time or during his transportation time. In addition to traditional street photography, Laurent Hou also goes inside people’s homes (of course with their consent) to shoot them in their daily life and family activities. His project about the 2015 Chinese new year in Beijing (that got the second prize of the Chinese new year contest organized by China.org) was a mix of these two approaches.

    Although Laurent Hou has only been to Guangdong once (before the project), he has a special relationship with this place since his grandparents on his father side were both born in the province (Chaozhou). During this project, he captured many different types of pictures and will group them into consistent series with different focus.