About me
Michel LavatPhotographer & videographer from Basel-Landschaft
I photograph and film moments that only happen once.
Ready before it happens
I’m Michel Lavat, a photographer, videographer and storyteller from Arisdorf in Basel-Landschaft, Switzerland.
I feel most at home with a camera where there is no second chance. Where nobody can say: Let’s do that again.
The first look on a wedding day. A punch in the ring. A dog that starts running right now. Moments like these don’t announce themselves. I watch, read the situation and I’m ready before they happen.
“You have to see the moment before it’s gone.”
Raised between camera and art
Photography and art were always part of my family. My father, Pericles Lavat, is a photographer and artist in Mexico. My older brother shot film on a Nikon FM10, and I watched over his shoulder.
At 17 I spent a year in Mexico and completed a Diplomado in Artes Plásticas at the Centro Morelense de las Artes. Art history, colour theory, composition: that’s where I learned why a picture works.
I still see it before I press the shutter. Lines, light, fields of colour, tension in the frame. Technique is craft. The eye comes from there.
Street portraits from Mexico City on YouTube“First I see lines, light and colour. Then I press the shutter.”
Hip-hop, rhythm and editing
My youth was hip-hop. I rapped and made my own music, drew and painted graffiti, studied music videos and shot my first videos.
Hip-hop showed me that attitude is visible: in clothes, in a line on a wall, in the way someone stands in front of the camera.
And it taught me rhythm. When I edit, I think in bars. A cut lands on the kick, a contrast on the snare, the movement in the frame sets the tempo.
That language lives in my videos today, in portraits and street photography, in sports and in brand content.
“To me, a video has a beat – even when no music is playing.”
From exchanging rings to exchanges in the ring
At first sight, boxing and weddings have nothing in common. Here sweat, hard light and contrast. There soft light, tears and family.
Photographically, they are closer than you think. In both, the decisive moment happens in a fraction of a second, and there is no replay.
In the ring it’s the one punch that decides the fight. At a wedding it’s the first look, the exchange of rings, a reaction somewhere among the guests.
That’s why I don’t just wait. I know the flow, read the people and sense where things are going. The ring made my eye at weddings faster. Weddings made my eye in the ring more sensitive.
“Either you get the moment. Or you don’t.”
Outdoors, with dogs
This principle is most honest outdoors in nature. A dog doesn’t pose. It runs, sniffs, glances back, and the moment is gone.
That’s why dog and pet photography needs the same as the ring: patience, observation, readiness. And every dog has its own way of tilting its head, jumping or waiting.
So I photograph dogs where they feel at home: outdoors, in motion and with the people they belong to.
“You don’t want to recognise a dog. You want to recognise your dog.”
What matters in the end
With Lavat Vision I bring together photography, video and storytelling. Weddings, sports, portraits, dogs or brand content: the subjects differ, my approach stays the same.
I stage little and observe a lot. I like real situations, movement and people who forget for a moment that there’s a camera around.
I don’t just want to show what something looked like, but how it felt.
I work across the Basel region and all of Switzerland, and I take on assignments worldwide.
One Shot
“You only get one shot.”
In my hip-hop years, that line was about courage to me: you have one chance, so don’t hesitate.
Today I read it twice. A shot is a picture. And a shot is a single chance.
That’s what connects everything I do. The first look on a wedding day. The punch that decides the fight. The dog that jumps right now. The cut that lands on the snare.
None of these moments come back. I can’t repeat them. I can only be ready.
One shot. One chance.