Master of staging, Nicolas Bets is an eminent photographer of Parisian fashion inspired by the world of cinema to produce his frenzied compositions. The Belgian photographer strives to tell a story to spectators, as though they were looking at the freeze frame of a film during a screening. For their part, the extravagant models that he directs pose with the virtuosity of actors in front of his lens. His images work on our funny bones, which require considerable preparation so that each detail can be taken to its extreme. ?Bagdad Station? was nonetheless entirely improvised, on the A86 motorway near the city of Bezons in Île-de-France. The photographer wished to represent the concept of a beach in the city for the urban culture magazine WAD (We Are Different). Taking a service station as a set, the models parade in swimsuits. Nicolas Bets? imagination is absolutely limitless.

**The artist: Nicolas Bets**

Nicolas Bets arrived in Paris from his native Belgium at the age of 17, to become a photographer like his father. After abandoning photography classes, he became the assistant to Daniel Lorieux and Claus Wickrath for seven years. It was during this period that he learned about the aesthetics and staging of characters, combining creative madness and technical rigour. Today, he mainly works in the fashion industry and showcases products using models, in which expressiveness and attention to detail are taken to the extreme. He was notably responsible for the success of the ?Babouche? campaign, in which he staged naked characters in the heart of Paris, with babouches (Oriental slippers) as their only accessories! Nicolas Bets works for the magazines Vanity Fair, Photo, Marie-France and Wad. His principal clients are Louis Vuitton, Coca-Cola and Cegetel.