Mathieu Forget’s Portraits Capture People Frozen In Time and Space

Everything feels like a blessing when you make the dreams in your head a reality. This is certainly true for former elite tennis player turned photographer, Mathieu Forget.

At 37, this multifaceted artist has created a world all his own, which he has shaped and refined over time. At eighteen, he wanted to move to the United States. He immediately booked his ticket after winning a tennis scholarship to the University of California, Santa Barbara. There, he explored every art form within his reach, developed a passion for hip-hop dance, and fell in love with the world of music videos, from Michael Jackson to Usher.

Mathieu Forget

He then traveled to Los Angeles and New York. Between trips, auditions, studies, and odd jobs, he found his path and took his career to new heights by deciding to defy the laws of gravity. In 2017, his first jump was captured in a photograph by Zach Lipson: a Superman in the streets of Chicago. And that was his breakthrough. “This movement is part of a dancer’s vocabulary, and as soon as I posted images of myself leaving the ground, I got great feedback,” he explains.

Rather than waiting for an opportunity to come along, he quickly used social media to make a name for himself. “I produced a huge amount of content,” he continues. “I reached out to many photographers as a model and dancer. Many said no, but some said yes. Zach came up with the idea for that image, the first one to go viral.”

In Front of and Behind the Camera

Since then, Mathieu Forget has been exploring the concept of levitation and flight, that moment suspended between heaven and earth. Then, one day, this former French third-division champion at Roland Garros, who was quickly nicknamed “The Flying Man,” decided to strike out on his own: “I worked with many photographers for five years. My collaborators weren’t always able to keep up with my vision, and the enthusiasm of my community was such that I couldn’t hold back. So I bought a camera and a tripod. My first self-portrait was taken in Palm Springs in 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic. At the time, I had shaved my head. I went out for a few hours and discovered the tourist office, a modern, minimalist building. As an architecture lover, it was the perfect spot.”

It was in New York that he cut his teeth as an artistic director, learning in particular how to coordinate and manage events, social media, and press and public relations. His creative vision thus evolved, combining different formats and art forms, blending photography and video, dance and architecture, sports and music.

“I had 400,000 followers on Instagram and TikTok. From there, I started getting commissions. I took advantage of the pandemic to quit my job and devote myself 100% to my project. The digital era was taking off.”

Lacoste then contacted him for a commercial project related to his passion, the newspaper Le Parisien featured him in a story, and his career took off with the French national networks TF1 and M6.

No Special Effects or Retouching

The exhibition and book celebrate 10 years of photography by this Sony and Apple ambassador. He combines athletic and technological feats across the globe, from the Americas to Europe, including Japan, Turkey, and even Antarctica, particularly alongside his wife, the ballerina Victoria Dauberville. For him, everything begins with an encounter, a decisive moment. “The life of a nomadic artist must remain open to opportunities.” The result is a beautiful blend of technical mastery and the poetry of the human form. Mathieu Forget never retouches bodies in motion, whether his own or those of his guests. The only adjustments are to the backgrounds, color, lighting, and graphic design. “Above all, I seek to streamline the images, because, visually speaking, I love beauty and simplicity.”

This self-taught photographer got his start with a Canon, “a camera that’s complex to handle,” and his iPhone 10, “simpler, but not responsive enough to capture the moment.” In his creative process, he uses his phone for location scouting and behind-the-scenes footage. Recently, he has been making short narrative films. “My friends are Sony ambassadors and really took the time to explain everything to me. I needed a very fast shutter speed. I also use wide-angle lenses, which are well-suited to hip-hop culture, as well as fisheye lenses, and the self-timer on a tripod. That gives me a buffer of 3 to 10 seconds. I made a lot of mistakes by shooting too early or too late, until I finally understood how to get the shot right.”

This one-on-one struggle with himself was thus a learning experience, a challenge that was both physical and artistic, coupled with a meditative process. Mathieu Forget finds himself alone in places devoid of any human presence or in the middle of a bustling street.

Today, he works with the Sony a1, a hybrid photo and video camera capable of capturing up to 30 or 50 frames per second. He rarely uses long focal lengths, such as the 300mm.

“I capture a body in motion; you have to be close enough to interact with the person,” the photographer says.

His equipment includes a wide range of lenses, from a 14mm ultra-wide-angle lens to a 70–200mm lens. For a specific subject, such as breaking down a movement, he uses another camera capable of filming at 100 frames per second. This allows him to create a photographic work composed of about a hundred consecutive shots.

1.7 Million Followers

Over the past 10 years, his concept has continued to grow on social media. 70% of his revenue comes primarily from collaborations with brands and partners. Instagram remains the most important platform for his business, although TikTok has been a game-changer thanks to the popularity of his behind-the-scenes videos.

“My third video reached 15 million views,” he points out. “On Instagram, it took me five years to reach 15,000 followers. On TikTok, I gained them in 48 hours. Between the preparation, the jump, and the landing, viewers are interested in the behind-the-scenes action and the technical aspects.” When asked how the landing goes, he replies with a laugh: “Everything’s fine, I’m still here!”

Today, he has a total of 1.7 million followers across all social media platforms. It’s no surprise, some jumps are incredible, inspired by the beauty of the surroundings: landscapes, architecture, design, geometric patterns, and outfits.

“The world is so beautiful; people should have the chance to see it. I’m lucky to travel, and social media gives me that visibility. We do this job to share what we love. And people follow us because they love the spectacle.”

From Publication to Exhibitions

In 2026, Lévitation hit bookstores. It is his second coffee-table book, following Sport in the Air, which focused on the Olympic and Paralympic Games, but it is the very first to offer a retrospective of his work spanning a decade. This book bridges the physical and digital worlds through augmented reality, accessible via his website. It invites readers to go behind the scenes of photo shoots, making-of videos, and narrative films. The initials “AR” are marked on certain photos in the index; simply point your phone’s camera at the image to immerse yourself in the expanded universe of his creative process.

Photography, regardless of the subject (in this case, the art of levitation), is ultimately just the starting point of a long visual story meant to be fully experienced by everyone. An experience that has become the new paradigm for the photography book. “In the digital age, we live through our phones. Creation brings us back to the essence of who we are. We cannot fight against this world that is opening up to us. I think the two are complementary, provided that the digital is brought back to something human.”

Mathieu Forget also uses artificial intelligence in post-production or for research; in short, for “anything that saves him time.” While he is both for and against this technology, he is more drawn to what goes on behind the scenes. “I approach my creations as works of art. They can only exist if there’s life behind them. My images are meant to be exhibited in the real world, beyond the digital realm.”

In November, he will open an outdoor exhibition in Paris, featuring a selection of photographs hung on the railings of the Saint-Jacques Tower, a former 16th-century bell tower. Once again, he is organizing interactive events in several cities, inviting the public to pose for the camera against a blue backdrop where the azure sky blends into the horizon.

He will also be at the Grand Palais for Paris Photo, as part of the bicentennial celebration of photography. There, he will unveil 200 unique pieces from one of his projects, also presented as a fold-out in the book, featuring the colorful, graphic architecture of the Simone Veil Elementary School in the Paris region. Four photographers participated in this project, each taking four photographs of four simultaneous jumps.

And What About 2027?

The year promises to be just as eventful. He plans to release a collector’s edition to mark his tenth anniversary, limited to 100 copies worldwide, as well as another in XXL format with a print run of 25 copies, intended for collectors and buyers. He will also make his debut at the Galerie Polka with a retrospective in January and is already preparing a sports project for the 2028 Los Angeles Games.

When asked about his vision for the future of photography, Mathieu Forget remains confident. “The medium will become increasingly hybrid, involving phones, cameras, glasses, and rings. New technologies will capture images that are increasingly accessible to everyone. The difference will lie in each person’s ability to use them to create a subject, a story, an emotion.”

For him, photography is the only way to “fly,” freezing that precise moment in motion. “We don’t know if we’re taking off or landing. It’s a suspended, magical moment. For a second, we’re all on equal footing, freed from our problems; the sky belongs to all of us.”

Levitation is available now for €75 and is published by Forgetmat Studio.

The Mathieu Forget Exhibition — 10 Years of Photography exhibition runs from November 16, 2026, through January 4, 2027, at Tour Saint-Jacques railings, Paris 4th arrondissement, France. Admission is free.

Image creditsMathieu Forget