A wide range of my photographic works is on Picfair.com

                       ✹

For almost thirty years, photographic travel has been a founding element of the artist's work. Having hesitated for a time between becoming a war reporter and a painter, Christophe Avella Bagur chose, when the choice of a future was definitive, to paint in France and to photograph almost exclusively outside the studio space, that is, to travel around cities and countries to bring back (photographic) views of his outdoor travels. In this way, thousands of photographs were taken on the road, alongside the painting, like a voyage of initiation into the world.

in this section of the site you'll find several reproductions of BW photographs since 1987, for more information on the works contact me by e-mail.

Side Road is a long-term photographic series developed between 1986 and 2020 across multiple countries, including Northern Ireland, Germany, Italy, Spain, Greece, Israel, Taiwan, Japan, and the United States. It is rooted in travel, but not in the idea of destination. What matters is the movement itself, and the conditions of seeing it produces.

I walk, often alone, and photograph along secondary paths, away from main flows. The work is built through time, without a predefined program. Images emerge from situations encountered, shaped by attention rather than intention.

A 28mm lens has often guided my way of framing, allowing proximity while maintaining a relation to space. The images are constructed in situ, without staging, through a direct engagement with the environment. Composition serves to clarify, not to embellish.

Side Road does not seek to document places, but to register a presence within them. Each image functions as an autonomous fragment, while contributing to a broader, discontinuous trajectory. The series reflects a sustained attempt to remain available to what appears, and to give form to it without forcing it.

The series Abrégé existentiel is conceived as a body of contemporary still lifes, each functioning as a condensed unit of life. Rather than representing objects, it organizes situations in which material elements carry human experience.

Each image is constructed through a rigorous staging process. Objects are selected, arranged, and combined according to a structural logic. They do not illustrate a story; they hold its weight. The image first appears as a readable, ordered surface before the tensions within it emerge.

The work is grounded in a principle of giving and withdrawal. The composition offers clarity and balance, then disrupts them through the nature of the elements and their relationships. This movement prevents a single interpretation and keeps the image active.

The series develops without a fixed program. It advances out of necessity and concludes when the impulse that sustains it recedes. Each still life remains autonomous while contributing to a fragmented exploration of essential stages of human existence.

These images are not documents of a staged setup, but forms intended to endure and remain active over time.

MBK (Malta, Bari, Kraków) is a photographic series produced over three nights in three European cities. All the images are taken at eye level, at night, using only available light. No flash is used.

I walk, observe, and photograph. The work is rooted in movement and attention. What matters is not the event, but the presence of life in its most discreet forms. Figures often remain at the edge, partially hidden, or suggested through traces: a glow from a phone, a reflection, a posture, a fragment of a body.

The night becomes a space of condensation. Light isolates, reveals, or erases. Each image is constructed in situ, without staging, through a precise engagement with the environment. Composition is not decorative; it serves to make visible what would otherwise remain unnoticed.

MBK is not a documentary series in the conventional sense. It does not seek to describe a place, but to register a state of presence. Each image functions as an autonomous unit, while contributing to a broader exploration of memory, distance, and the persistence of human traces within the urban night.

Side Road 2 prolonge l’esprit de Side Road dans un autre régime visuel : celui de la couleur, du numérique et de la ville contemporaine. Là où le premier ensemble travaillait les bords, les seuils et les tensions du monde en noir et blanc, ce nouveau cycle explore des espaces plus saturés de signaux, de surfaces, de reflets, d’enseignes, de clôtures, de zones de transit et de dispositifs de contrôle. La couleur n’y embellit pas la ville ; elle en révèle au contraire les fatigues, les faux repos, les tensions diffuses et la densité artificielle. New York, l’Italie, Marseille et d’autres lieux encore y apparaissent non comme des cartes postales, mais comme des territoires de passage, de suspension et d’attente. Comme dans Side Road, il ne s’agit pas de documenter le monde de façon descriptive, mais de s’y tenir à la bonne distance : marcher, attendre, cadrer, laisser venir. Chaque image cherche moins l’effet que la justesse d’un rapport entre lumière, surface, architecture, signal et présence humaine. Side Road 2 poursuit ainsi une même exigence : rendre lisible sans séduire, et faire de la photographie un lieu d’attention, de tension et de présence.