Photographers

Jean-Michel Berts (born 1959) is a French photographer renowned for his atmospheric black-and-white cityscapes. After beginning his career in the 1980s as a still-life photographer for major luxury and cosmetics brands, he developed a personal body of work centered on the visual and cultural character of cities. Using a Rolleiflex and large-format analog techniques, he photographs iconic urban environments—Paris, New York, Venice, Tokyo, Jerusalem—at dawn or late at night, moments when the absence of crowds allows architecture to become the principal subject.

Berts employs a refined technical approach inspired by the Ansel Adams Zone System, with exposures ranging from several seconds to many minutes. By overexposing his negatives and then under‑developing them, he achieves richly dense shadows, luminous highlights, and dramatic tonal contrast. This method produces photographs with a poetic, ethereal, almost timeless quality, elevating familiar cityscapes into meditative studies of form, space, and light. His images emphasize architecture as a reflection of civilization—an enduring record of cultural identity and urban memory.

Over the past two decades, Berts has exhibited internationally in Paris, Berlin, Tokyo, London, New York, and beyond. His prints are highly collected, and his monographs have contributed to his reputation as a leading contemporary practitioner of fine‑art architectural photography. Through a blend of technical precision and emotional restraint, Berts continues to create photographs that reimagine the modern city as both physical structure and dreamlike symbol.