BeatRoute Magazine BC Edition - March 2020

Behind The Lens
INTO THE
NIGHT
WITH PHOTOGRAPHER
INÉS ZIOUANE
By DAYNA MAHANNAH
I
wasn’t meant to do what I do today,”
Inés Ziouane’s French accent crackles
over the phone from Paris. She just
returned from a weekend in Lyon photographing
indie duo Terrenoire. Though
Ziouane moonlights—ironically—in the
daytime as a music journalist, her passion
and profession are rooted in the career
she has built taking pictures of musicians.
A bonafide hustler by every millennial
standard (she hasn’t had a day off in
a month), Ziouane’s attitude sparkles
amongst the status quo. “Now that I can
do stuff, I always want to do more,” she
gushes. “I’m so grateful for everything.”
Ziouane’s photos exude energy and
emotion that transcend their two-dimensionality.
Through juxtaposition and curation,
the collages she pieces together
on her Instagram share an experience,
not just a moment. Her eye captures
disco ball glimmer on a pulsing crowd, the
effervescence of an overwhelmed fan, an
exalted band halfway ready in a mirror.
Before stacking her repertoire of
photography subjects with artists like Billie
Eilish, Kristina Bazan, and YUNGBLUD,
Ziouane was confined to her bed for a
year in 2014 due to a rare genetic disease.
Forced to drop out of university where
she was studying medicine, she began
blogging about music. Ziouane got a call
to do an in-person interview—her first—
when her health was on the upswing. “This
is when things happened for real.”
Ziouane picked up a camera and practiced
her craft every night in the caverns
of Parisian live music venues. Immersing
herself amongst people in the music community,
it was music that “saved” her after
a year at home. Then, she met UK psych
rock band Black Honey, who invited her on
tour. “This is when I felt part of something
so much bigger than just myself for the
first time in a very long time,” she says.
But the journalist-cum-photographer
isn’t used to sharing her side of things.
When she dropped out of uni, she didn’t
tell her friends it was because she was
sick. Six years on, the thought that her
story may inspire others to pick up a
camera is appealing. She’s a glass-halffull
kind of person. “It’s the way to go,”
she giggles. “You know?”
1 BANKS in London, June 2019
(promo day at Universal UK for a day)
2 Yungblud in Paris, November 2019
(promo at his hotel)
3 Black Honey at Molotow in Hamburg,
Germany, November 2018
4 Billie Eilish in Paris (“It was June 2018,
and I was the photographer for the
meeting of Billie with her fans during an
afternoon at Universal Music France.”)
5 Frank Carter & The Rattlesnakes at
Rockhal in Luxembourg, March
6 Bagarre at L'Olympia de Paris,
November 2019
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