On September 12th, Vincent presented his photo exhibition "From Vladivostok to Paris" held at Arseniev Museum as part of the 9th International Film Festival of the Asian-Pacific region Pacific Meridian. In 1996 Vincent went to Russia to film Pavel Lungin's movie "Ligne de Vie". In 2010 he presented his film "Demain des l'aube" at the IFF Pacific Meridian. It was at that time that the idea of a personal photo exhibition came to be arranged in Vladivostok. Vincent explains, "While saying goodbye to Larissa Belobrova at the airport last year, suddenly we looked at each other and almost simultaneously agreed that yes, we need some collaborative project. Larissa knows that I love photography and that I took a lot of pictures in Vladivostok, so the idea, in general, was on the surface."

Vincent confessed that launching such a project took a lot of courage. "I was always very shy with my work as a photographer, as there are so many great photographers around," he said. "But, at some stage I felt that there are enough good photographs to be able to show them. I thought it was time for me to share them with the world.” He was particularly pleased that the exhibition was set up by his Russian friends. “I love coming to Russia. I always come here and feel that I’m linked with its culture. When I started acting, I was very impressed by Stanislavsky’s books, which convinced me to become an actor, so Russia has greatly influenced my life."

The actor does not consider a photo exhibition to be a radical change in his career. "It’s not about changing directions. I’ve always traveled a lot around the world taking photos. At some point, people started asking me to take some photos for them. For example, Luc Besson asked me to do some photos of his last shoot in Indonesia. I also worked with Carla Bruni and Gerard Depardieu. I had files of photos and I had to do something with them."

The essence of the exhibition is to bring together French and Russian culture in the form of a photo exhibition to show the relationship between Moscow, Paris and Vladivostok. France is represented by Gerard Depardieu and Carla Bruni and many ordinary people in Paris. In the same context, he photographed Moscow with Lungin, Sergey Stepanchenko and Oleg Tabakov. Vincent calls it a "creative look at the people with whom I have friendships."

Vincent explained his photography with "Why do we long for storytelling? To forget our loneliness? To satisfy our thirst for eternity? To make somebody cry? To laugh.. To talk... To love... To take a picture, capture a moment, or catch a glance. To stop, prolong the moment, tell a  story. I used to note one line after each meeting, just one thought as a bottom line of our discourse during the shoot. The pictures were taken in a gathering either before the performance, or between scenes, or even during a chance encounter within a couple of seconds. Included are well-known actors, politicians, cultural figures and artists, and sometimes strangers. The underlying feeling always becomes unveiled when developed - solitude, belief, fatigue, courage, strength, challenge..."

The exhibition will leave Vladivostok on September 14th and continue on to Moscow and then Paris. You can view more photos at the Exhibition gallery. Here are a couple photos of Vincent arriving at Vladivostok for the opening of the Pacific Meredian Film Festival.