Carl Begai

By Carl Begai

Success breeds contempt faster than crack-addicted rabbits trapped in a barn, and in the great tradition of tearing down those that have more than other folks on the same page, anyone brazen enough put a death grip on the brass ring is guaranteed to be slammed for it. This has been Munich-based French-American photographer Audrey Dujardin’s reality for the last year as her career has picked up speed. Ironically, any negativity that has come her way has had more to do with other ventures added to her resumé rather than her increased body of work behind the camera. A return to radio, diving deeper into video journalism / production, hosting metal festivals, work as a vocal coach, and exhibiting occasional pirate-like tendencies with mic in hand on Alestorm’s stage, have all contributed to an increased number of keyboard warriors asking who the fuck Dujardin thinks she is, and taking their supposedly allotted pounds flesh accordingly.

Dujardin is too busy working to notice, however; a concept her naysayers haven’t quite gotten a handle on.

“It’s funny,” she says, now able to laugh off the vast majority of attempts to bring her down. “A few years ago when I was doing stuff with Emilie Autumn, people thought I was full of shit and just bragging my ass off… until they saw the photos. Then it was ‘Oh shit, if she’s on stage, then maybe she’s not making it up…’ I ended up getting this wave of hate from people after the Metalfest this year, which was an event I hosted. People say awful things when someone becomes successful, so you can imagine what they were saying about me. The truth is that I work myself to the point of exhaustion. This shit doesn’t happen on its own; it happens because I’m on the phone all the time, I’m networking all the time, and I’m where I’m supposed to be when something needs to get done. This doesn’t happen because I show my tits or anything like that.”

Don’t mistake this as bitterness talking. Instead, call it attitude laced with justified contempt for people who can’t fathom what it means to put skull to grindstone.

“Lately, I’ve had people telling me ‘So-and-so has been saying this about you…’, and most of the time it’s a bunch of girls who don’t have much to do except sit on Facebook all day speculating why anybody would ever want to hire me. You know, at some point these people might figure out that it has to be because I’m actually doing something for the jobs I’m getting. Rock The Nation, who are one of my biggest clients outside of magazines, they continually request me for tasks that are anything from advice on what bands to book, to tour or video reports and editing, and now the event hosting. I’m not asking for these jobs, and Rock The Nation is a team of a lot of people spread over several countries, so we’re all working together.”

Having established her photography career via the self-made empire ShutterBLAST.net – more on that later – Dujardin has become as visible as some of the metal artists she shoots. It seems logical that her success as an F-stop commando became the jump off point for work in radio and video; a natural evolution from medium A to B and C.

“I think you’re right about that,” Dujardin agrees. “Mind you, I’m producing and presenting rather than filming, so the photographer aspect is independent of the video work I do. One might think that doing one is the result of the other because cameras are part of the discipline, but I think the reason I got into doing the TV and video stuff is because of my experience in radio. I started doing radio when I was 15, which is half my life, so I’m comfortable with talking to people, doing interviews and getting information out of them. The background I have in radio, plus the network and access to people that I have now… I think comes down to a mixture of opportunity, experience, and ambition.”

Dujardin can also take credit for playing vocal coach to Finnish pop rock band Indica’s vocalist, Johanna “Jonsu” Salomaa, on a special version of the band’s song ‘In Passing’, due to be released at a later date. It was an opportunity brought to the table thanks to Dujardin’s long-standing working relationship with Nuclear Blast, and having French roots. She explains:

“It was another case of being in the right place at the right time. I met the girls from Indica in Helsinki at the last show on Nightwish’s Dark Passion Play two years ago, and again at a Nuclear Blast Christmas party, so even though I had no real interest in them at the time I kept running into them. The band had re-recorded their Finnish debut album in English so the label could release it, and (label owner) Markus Staiger saw the opportunity for the band to gain momentum outside of Finland if they recorded songs in local languages. The suggestion came up about Indica recording a single for the French market. He called me out of nowhere and hired me to write the lyrics for the song in French and then train the vocalist, Jonsu, to sing it.”

“I ended up coaching Jonsu via Skype for a month to learn the lyrics in French, and then we were flown in to a studio in Hamburg, where we spent two days working on the song. I ended up recording backing vocals for the track with Jonsu.”

To be fair to the naysayers, the backlash that comes with Dujardin’s to-do list should be expected. When a musician decides to take a shot at acting, opening a restaurant, or launching a brand of deodorant, there’s always a call for the offending party to stay the hell where they are and do what they do best. She’s basically inviting similar scrutiny.

“It does get confusing for people,” she admits. “When I was hosting Metalfest – which was Rock The Nation’s idea, not mine – I saw a bunch of photographers in the photo pit and I could tell they were thinking ‘Shit, we know that chick from somewhere…’ (laughs).”

As for where photography fits in Dujardin’s present day-to-day, it’s still her top priority.

“It’s still there, and it’s surpassed all my expectations. I don’t know why I got into photography to begin with, but whatever the trigger was, it had to do with the need to get out there and report on what I experienced. That turned into things like doing radio and presenting interviews on video. The photography is still my business card, more than ever. It’s still my main focus out of the ventures I have going at the moment.”

“I was supposed to take a break,” she continues, “but I got a really big boost in the photography area following a trip to Istanbul with Orphaned Land and the 70000 Tons Of Metal Cruise in Miami last year. After that I was more in demand than I’d ever been. Those trips turned out to be major advertising for me. Those two trips meant I didn’t have to spend one second looking for work since then. There are bands that I’ve worked with before, like Alestorm and MaYaN, that ask me to do shoots with them, but Symphony X called me out of nowhere and requested me as their photographer for the new album (Iconoclast). I’d never worked with them before. Skull Fist was the same thing, although I’d never actually heard of them before (laughs). They just sent me a mail saying that they’d be in town, they wanted me to shoot them, they made me an offer, and asked me to come down to the show. Things like that, I think a lot of it is because I’ve been around for a while, I do a lot of networking, and to be honest, some luck is involved as well (laughs).”

In closing, Dujardin ponders the suggestion that some people might see her as a poster child for success and achievement… minus having to sell one’s soul first.

“Keep in mind that people in the industry know I work hard. A lot of the naysayers are on the outside, and they only see what I post on my websites. They don’t know me personally and they’d never work with me anyway, so they’re ignorant to what it takes to get this far. I’d be glad that somebody sees the truth, that I do work my ass off (laughs).”

Check out Dujardin’s body of work (you pervs ) via the following links:

– ShutterBLAST.net

– 98.4 Vallee FM (en Français)

– video interview with Finntroll and Turisas: Part 1, Part 2

And for those that want an in-depth look at Dujardin’s career as a photographer, check out this interview.

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