The designer Hedi Slimane, who over four years blazed a best-selling, controversial and much-imitated trail through fashion as the creative director of Saint Laurent before leaving in March 2016 without explanation or apology, is re-emerging in the public eye this week, this time as a photographer.

That guise is nothing new for Mr. Slimane. Throughout his career — at Saint Laurent and before that at Dior, where Mr. Slimane designed men’s wear from 2000 to 2007 and elicited similar rapture — photography has been a constant obsession, running parallel to fashion but never beholden to it. Since leaving Saint Laurent, Mr. Slimane, 48, has devoted himself to it full time, batting back rumors that he is seeking backers for his own collection. He never intended to leave fashion, he says now, and did not specifically rule out a return. (It would not, however, be in his own name.)