Martin Tremblay is a native of Abitibi region of Québec. After high school he became a miner and worked in total darkness down in the mines of Northern Québec. It can be said that this was his first dark room. Still, he longed for the light and, after several years, he traded his miner’s lamp for a flash and entered photography school.
Always an artist at heart, Martin excelled in his studies where he was intrigued and inspired by the schools of modernism, geometry and minimalism. He developed an exceptional eye for the play between shadow and light, spending hours upon hours retouching images, mastering both the tools and the subtleties of play between shadow and light, constructing hyper-realistic images, a passion that is still very much present in his work today.
From school he went on to assist major photographers before opening his own studio in 1999. His deep respect for the power of lighting and a unique vision for worlds within worlds, led him to create magical universes that defy the expectations of his audiences.
Today Martin’s work has been recognized all over the world and published in prestigious international magazines such as Zink New York, Schön! London, NOI.SE Australia and Highlights Australia, to name but a few. His list of awards includes the Lux Grand Prize in 2015 for photography and for fashion in 2015, a Mirrors award for fashion and a Lux award for portrait, among many others. He even has a Juno Award for best album cover.
But beyond the raw and practiced talent that makes his work so unusual, it is Martin’s ability to understand and connect with his clients that makes him such an obvious choice for art directors and editors from Montréal to Australia.
Perfectionist and always at the avant-garde ( he likes to joke that he always wants to be at least 5 or 10 years ahead of the times ) Martin is constantly exploring with new styles, taking on bigger challenges and making bolder choices to push the boundaries of his oeuvre and of the trade. A patient and detail-oriented shooter, he understands that the delight is in the details and focuses precisely on the minutia, whether technical, artistic or conceptual, that will take a photograph from great to monumental.