"The time of shooting"
Shooting is a way to take, instantly, a selected part of what we call « reality », making a photographical image in this specific choice, trying to give it a meaning. It is a conscient and voluntary action, made by the photographer. The artist do not « take » the photograph : he completely choose, built, and construct it.
The way to look at, to receive and to interiorize the photographic image dépends deeply from the multiple options offered to the photographer.
« Here-and-now » is the condition of shooting with a camera : that is the precise instant to be catch.
A photograph represents the localized mark of an instant, the time of shooting, an unique point in the flow of time. So, the photographer picks out this precise moment..
Photographies allow often to partially relive, with its unique testimony value , the trace and the memory of a precious and fugitive instant.
So, with « the time of shooting » , the photographer seize the reality, at his own manner. Confirming what Kant wrote about the reality, the photographer grasp only his own subjective and personal version, as we all do. So, the photographers practice Kant’s philosophy without being aware of this.
The choice of this « decisive instant » tightly dépends of the photographer’s time spent to interiorize the desire, to open his heart, to aspire and tend at its own sens of aesthetics, of what is beautiful and emotional for him.
Life takes place now , in the present. Before, it was not now , after, this moment is gone. Live intensely the present moment half opens a way of wisdom for the photographer. Allowing the perception of an happiness to primarly be, and possibly to have, to possess. Photography allows also to relive , through the testimony it represents, the trace and the memory of precious and fleeting moments .
This specific time is also called « the decisive instant » as it is attributed to the well known french photographer H. Cartier Bresson. In fact, he rather thought « the photographic shooting » with an analogy to the hunt. So taking the context of instantaneously opportuneness into account.
This « time of shooting » is often a source of adrenalin for the shooter, the photographer. Because the recorded file in the memory card or the sensitive emulsion by photons is a promise. To be labored by the artist-photographer through post-production and printing.
The result depends of the pertinency, luck, knowledge in photographical technique. But also of a great capacity of mental preview and well trained aesthetic sensibility.
All these reasons and reflections seems to me quite fundamental to benefit from and to choose the right « time of shooting ». To tend to achieve a photographic artwork.
Août 2016
"About the photographs exhibited. And poégraphy ..."
Taking instantly a selected portion of reality is photograpying, so as to confine it into a picture and try to give it a meaning. This is a voluntary and conscious action of the photographer. The artist do not "takes" photograph, he builds it, he does it.
The way to look at it, to receive, to view and to interpret the photographic image depends closely from the multiple potential options of the photographer.
In this field of possibilities, through a voluntarily and naturally way, I had to restrict my image captures and my choices at those that can cause emotions and questions.
To start with, these emotions are chosen according to there aesthetic nature : these pictures are shaped and structured so to provide a pleasant feeling of harmony and beauty, suitable for internal poetic echo. The picture has then a capacity to catch pleasure: watching it, by lazing in the peaceful path of daydream that induces in it, such as the photographer has initiated by his choices. Thus, the object of "Poégraphy" is the perception and poetic reading of the photographic image, conditioned by the fact of watching and receiving.
These questions focus on the transience of living beings, which man claims frequently to be the outcome. This explain the photographs of abandoned traces resulting of our activities. Then, these images can question about the futility of agitation and modernity, too often in the poverty of thought and in the absence of relativity, and perspective in relation to the essential.
Some guidance governs this photographic work such as finiteness and dizziness induced by the simple beauty, pure and bare, particularly in parts of the landscaped imagery. An evocation of time elapsed and to come, may be. Sometimes, with an orientalist attraction towards a journey of reflection, derealization and allegorical wandering. A possible route to a quiet meditation, a daydream, a serene detachment from reality, a form of flight and mental liberation....
Within my choice of depicting a part of a reality, I was attracted by the doors and windows, the "huis" in old French. Indeed, they are the frames, defined by man, which allow to see outward or inward or both simultaneously , like the exhibited Andalusian window which, from the courtyard, gives a glimpse of an inner light and also the reflections of the surrounding external structures...
The photos of the fighting fowls in a "Pit" (Guadeloupe F.W.I.) while catching violence unleashed by man - which these birds are an analogy of - might suggest the fandango dance, precursor of the flamenco, where colorful coats swirls in staccato to shod heels of leaping adversary-partners. Let us then reflect on the very thin line between ineffable beauty and exquisite violence...
On an image, lines and their connections/collections can be either threatening or soothing. These hypnotic tricks convey the eyes towards the essence of the draw. As in painting, perspective, whether linear or aerial, suggests a sensitive, very present and virtual geometry. This attracts the viewer's attention while releasing its range of emotions.
These reflections have led to the present four series of pictures displayed in the "Fourteen"place, Caen's artistic events site (October 2016). The "Pitt a coqs" appears next to "Poegraphies", "Huis" and "Traits".
My gratitude goes to the encouraging and stimulating presence of Françoise, my wife who, relentlessly, has inspired me to create, express my photographic image and exhibit it, thus exposing myself. As an artist-craftsperson, her critical eye was and still is both objective and caring without any tolerance for approximation.
In order to tend towards a printed image as accomplished and perfect as possible, the entire production chain, from the precise choice of materials to the final photoprint, is thoughtful and tested. The intervention of softwares is limited to the development and cropping of the raw images. These, in turn, are as much as possible elaborated according to the professional excellence criteria of the "Digigraphy" standard on hight quality paper "Museum" or "Fine Arts".
Some prints are presented on a rare and exclusive Japanese paper made from traditional methods, sheet by sheet. Each one is unique.
In recent years, an intensive photographic work focused on golf courses for both the Regional Committee of Tourism of Normandy and for a company operating many golfing facilities in France. It shows a specific beauty and harmony reminiscent of the stripped perfection of Japanese and English gardens.
An essential artistic work on mangroves, unlimited source of aesthetic and poetic inspiration, was also favored in recent years. Done at dusk, while feeding the lagoons mosquitoes of my adopted country Guadeloupe.
Finally, a project is being developed for a possible upcoming exhibition in Northern Italy... other ideas are in progress....