Frédéric George Pauwels (b. 1971) is a photographer based in Belgium and Catalonia, Spain. A lifelong collector of images, his fascination with visuals began in the early 1980s, shaped by magazines, posters, and vinyl covers. At 15, he received his first camera and fell in love with the photographic process—a passion that has endured ever since.

Fred graduated in photography in 1993 and started his career in advertising, working primarily in studios. Over time, travel and encounters pulled him away from commercial work and toward more human-centered projects, such as artist portraits.

In 2020, Fred reconnected with a more personal approach, reflecting on humanity’s intricate relationship with the natural world. By 2024, his work entered a phase of exploration, delving into the paradoxes of the Anthropocene. This searching phase deepened his relationship with photography as a way to honor fleeting moments, recording both singular, self-contained images and those that naturally intertwine to form larger, thematic series.

Fred shares his work with quiet contemplation, embracing imperfection and the transient beauty in everyday life. His photography draws from wanderings, reflections, and the silence between things, offering glimpses of impermanence, harmony, and the marks we leave on the world—an invitation to pause and observe.

Photography has always been my lifeline—a continuous act of witnessing and recording. From the moment I picked up a camera, it became my way of navigating the world. A somewhat difficult childhood, a lingering sense of not belonging—then, it clicked. Photography gave me a way to engage with life on my own terms.

I do not work from a structured narrative; instead, the process itself is the narrative. Each image is a moment extracted from the flow of time, a fragment of existence captured without nostalgia or intent to revisit. Some exist in isolation, while others find echoes in one another, forming larger conversations over time.

Detached from the past, I move forward—not to make sense of what was, but to acknowledge what is. My photographs do not seek to explain, only to exist. They are traces, evidence of the fleeting, the unnoticed, the overlooked.