Having begun his career as a black and white reprographer in a Montana photographic laboratory, Yann Charbonnier worked as an assistant to numerous photographers in New York and Paris. Yann Charbonnier has covered all areas (advertising, fashion, still life, portraits). As a freelance photographer since 1988, he specializes in reportage and black and white portraits, is interested in scientists and plastic surgeons, has exhibitions in Arles as well as in the galleries of New York and works with the creative agency VU. Yann attempts to adopt the same technique for everything: taking black and white photographs, working around the subject with surrealist techniques, suggesting a dream at the same time as reality. He aims to arouse curiosity with the tone, rhythm and choice of his images. As, being a photographer, he says, is a way of thinking, “it means expressing uncertainties, and above all not providing coherent answers”.

Achievements since winning the grant
Yann Charbonnier was awarded the Villa Médicis Hors les Murs prize in 1992.
In 1994, he was awarded the Fiacre grant by the Ministry of Culture.
In 1998, his reportage, which began in 1988 and for which he received the Jean-Luc Lagardère Foundation grant, was exhibited in galleries in Germany, Austria and the United States.
In 2000, his work was exhibited in Paris and Cologne in the Karsten Greeve Gallery.
In 2001, he completed his series on Nature, the conclusion of ten years work, which was exhibited as Kannibals et vahinés at the Fine Art Museum in Chartres.
In 2002 and 2003, he became interested in theatre and discovered Prague. He travelled around the city - walking in the footsteps of Kafka. From his experiences, he created the exhibition entitled Prague c’est un theatre.
In 2004, Yann took part in an exhibition entitled Regards sur 10 nouvelles capitales européennes on the Champs-Elysées, alongside 9 other winners of the Jean-Luc Lagardère Foundation grant.
Yann Charbonnier is one of the authors of Vivre le Sport, a beautiful book produced at the investigation of the Jean-Luc Lagardère Foundation and published in collaboration with Editions du Chêne (published in September 2006). For each book sold, two euros are donated to Foot Citoyen, an association which promotes the values of good citizenship on the football field.
Yann Charbonnier works for Libération and regularly exhibits his work at the Karsten Greve Gallery in Paris.