Fred Fogherty, the photographer who can make a glass levitate without Photoshop

Meet a French photographer and magician who feels almost like home in Bucharest. It’s a lovely September evening in Bucharest, but because of a nasty cold, I am blind to everything around me. Only when Fred Fogherty, a French photographer and Fujifilm ambassador, starts talking about the beauty and warmth of the evening, about the people wearing light clothing, as if it still were summer, I actually notice them all. His words are almost like the green light that tells you that you can safely cross the street. After he moved to Bucharest four months ago, Fred Fogherty held a street photography workshop and has become increasingly active in the local photo landscape. Fred is also a magician, which stirred my interest, and hence our meeting over a cup of mint tea (me) and an espresso (Fred). Fred Fogherty is his pseudonym, he explains. “The real name is my secret.” While Fred has a clear-cut history, the short form of Frederic, Fogherty resulted as a combination between fog, “the mystery, the magic”, and the ending “erty”. “I watched many American movies, looking at the names of the characters. And then I saw “Around the world in 80 days”, and in the movie there is one character called Moriarty. And Fogherty was born.” Fred introduces himself. “First I’m an illusionist and a mentalist. This is my job and I travel all around the world with these magician skills. The biggest trick I did was the levitation of a building - one meter and a half for an automobile company. I can make a car or a motorbike disappear, I can cut an assistant in two pieces, but it’s my past,” he says. Wait, that’s your past? We were just getting into the story and Fred was already ending it. He then explains: “I finished with these kind of huge shows, now I’m mostly doing mentalism shows. Magic at a very big scale is very complicated and requires a lot of stuff, while mentalism is only by myself.” As summer was fading away, despite the warmth, I really needed to hear a magical story, so I fire questions away: Why did you start doing magic, first of all? And what is your story, Fred? Fred takes the little cup of coffee in his big hands, smiles and goes right to the beginning of his story. The winter In the United States, the winter of 1995-1996 was the snowiest winter season on record to date. But for Frederic, a 23-year old French guy, it was simply a great winter. He had found his first job in the Valfrejus ski resort, a French resort located in the Alps, above 1,500m, and he was loving it. A big guy, dressed in a classic suit, he was the MC in a local cabaret, entertaining people and playing music. One night, standing in front of the microphone, Frederic introduced the show of a magician called Tiac, a guy all dressed in black with a small yellow handkerchief, whose show was part of a comedy festival taking place at the ski resort. The young MC was immediately fascinated by Tiac. Talking into a microphone was fine for Fred, making people laugh was also OK, but now he was witnessing something totally new. Tiac made people dream with his magic show and Frederic saw that in the eyes of the audience, all shining. He decided in that very instant that he wanted to become a magician. After the show, he asked Tiac how he could become a magician himself. The illusionist answered “if you want to become a magician, if you REALLY want to become a magician, you will become one”. Then he winked and that was all. Three years later, they met at a festival, and two more years, Tiac died in a car crash after a show. Meanwhile, Frederic had become a magician and was now called Fred Fogerthy.