• photo-reportage supposed to be the objective witness of great or small events.
  I include in this framework journalistic photos, simple  family keepsake pictures, wedding photos, posed portraits or not, etc. These are pictures with informative aim, broadly defined..
  
  
• "commercial photos" (or advertising) which aim to magnify a "product" to attract attention or envy. But it can also be "political" photos in a frame of propaganda or ideological campaign.
  
  
• artistic photos who, like paintings, give free rein to spectators imagination and artist's creativity.
  
  

Of course these three categories are not static : for intance one photo of war (and as horrible it could be) could also become "commercial" or "ideoligical" in the context it could be used to stimulate patriotic feelings and, in the same time, it could contain ... a certain artistic side.

My photographic choices are moving towards the third option: artistic photo. My productions are, I think, largely influenced by my taste for painting, non-figurative Art and Advertising.

I have read some articles on the concept of visual reality and now I wonder about the realism of the photographic image (usually credited to him - the problem is there).
Are there any limitations in the photography editing process for that a photo finely be ... a photo ? Reading articles on human vision led me to reflect on the concept of "visual reality" and to wonder about the realism of the photographic picture, realism we usually credited him.

Are there any limits in the picture editing process to keep a photo... as a photo ?

[ read ]

From my first steps with a camera, there are more than 30 years, I considered that the image captured by the lens and frozen on film picture was not the culmination of the creative photographic process, but on the contrary the starting point for the representation of a more intimate alternative personal symbolic reality,. Trying to draw a parallel with the work on his canvas a painter realized, I would say the image from the shooting is only the simple sketch. Everything (almost) is coming ...

*    *

My "models", my sources of influences :

The vast majority of my images are retouched. In the past I used various "simple" means "treatment" under the enlarger reconstructions, changes in the chemistry of development, simple coloring, assemblies, by cutting and pasting, etc.
Today this creative desire remained the same and digital processing is now more convenient than physical manipulations. Digital tools have made apparently simplest work (by freeing notte the constraints of chemistry and darkroom) but it offers in the same time so many possibilities that it becomes very hard to know when it's necessary to stop action for staying in the best and avoid the worst.

• Modern painting and abstract art
  I am inspired by currents such as Minimalism, Op Art, Conceptual Art, Pop Art, Graffiti, Surrealism, etc. I remember even simple minimalist graphics, bright colors, extraordinary compositions , bewildering.
  There is of course a logic to this pseudo "clutter" ... but it is up to the viewer to decipher.
  
  
• The "Masters" of the photography
  The famous masters of Photography are obviously inexhaustible mine of inspiration, role models, both in the photographic art as artistic and aesthetic choices.

• Advertising
  I look with particular attention beautiful advertising images (fashion, perfumes, luxury products or brands, ...) and I try to inspire by the technical and communication aspect of the image to maximize the visual impact of my own productions.
  
  

So, as you can see, I often destruy the "photorealism" of mu pictures. Why ? Because it is simply my last priority.

[ N ]

*    *