Cedric Delsaux

Cedric Delsaux - Genius or piggy backing off a well known franchise's success? 

There's no doubt that Cedric Delsaux can take a great photograph, especially of urban landscapes but upon a closer look at his work, I found myself wondering if his images would be getting a second glance if they didn’t contain well known characters/ships from the Star Wars franchise.

Here's the cherry on top... Pierrick Gueneugue ringing any bells? No? It's rare to find any articles ACTUALLY crediting Pierrick, when In fact this is the man who does all of the CGI (Photoshop) for Delsaux's images. So not only does Cedric Delsaux incorporate George Lucas' original ideas into his images but he is (possibly unknowingly) receiving all the acknowledgement when Pierrick is adding those 'finishing touches' that his audience love and remember to his images.

Cedric Delsaux will be the first to admit that the original intent of his series 'Dark Lens' was not in fact Star Wars related, But it was instead intended to be an exhibition of our modern world, from the rise of skyscrapers to the decay of urban fringe. But Delsaux found things were amiss when he had finished his grand surveys of urban landscapes. He found that his images were too monotonous, they were simply too plain and normal. So in other words they had NO stand out qualities, no WOW factor, nothing to make the viewer remember his images and want to continue viewing them time and time again.

It's true. For example if you remove the Star Wars characters from the following images, they cease to have the same 'feeling'. Yes the images are sharp, 'edgy' and are well shot but they cease to have any stand out qualities.

Would Cedric Delsaux have the same recognition and fan base if he had (or should I say had Pierrick Gueneugue) not incorporated Star wars into these images? Which leads me back to my original question : Is Cedric Delsaux a genius or is he simply piggybacking off a well known franchise's success?