News

Three lectures in Japan this month

22 January 2007

One at the Osaka School of Art and Photography and two in Kyoto (Kyoto University of Art and Design). It was good to discuss like that. The last talk during a Symposium about Contemporary photography organized by Mr Goto (Editor and Art Critic well known for his impressive work onPhotography and Contemporary Art and his collaboration with Ruichi Sakamoto. My talk was a discussion with the great Photo my friend critic Mariko Takeuchi and Mr Goto. Read more…

2007 coming soon…

21 December 2006

Yeap, and so much to do. I expect it as an experimental year (I bet it’s fun to read this, especially when it’s written by a photographer who seems to always shoot the same picture). Cinema, new series based on different technics, different points of view… a new book coming soon too (EMPIRE) and the first base of a generic research about the “portraits photographiques et uniformes” since I’ve started this in 1999.

Was a strong experience

15 December 2006

In a supermarket, at the border of France and Luxembourg, in Longwy… I was doing the portraits of the clients, pushing their trolley. I like these moments, they are intense for me. This article is in the french national newspaper “le monde” (see the website) of today. Made me happy.

Current exhibition at Galerie Nouvelles Images

27 November 2006

Current exhibition at Galerie Nouvelles Images, Den Haag, Holland. 14 portfolios are presented flat on tables, introding the images of several series, from Water-polo to Empire. Then, it’s possible to real have an overview of the “portraits photographiques et uniformes” project, since 2000.

Videoclip for Florent Marchet

2 October 2006

A marching band, walking in the middle of an empty field… looks like a surrealist western, right? It will be the last image of the videoclip for the Rio Baril song of Florent Marchet (Universal music/barclay)

The swiss guards of the Vatican

30 August 2006

I did it last week: The swiss guards of the Vatican (Guardia Svizzera Pontificia). It’s one of the big chapter of my projects around the european guards. I stayed at the Vatican. It was amazing, peaceful and strange, the feeling of beeing in the middle of something BIG and small at the same time, a safe place. The legend about the uniform of the swiss guard (existing since 1506) tells that Michellangelo designed the purple, orange and red uniform. The real story is just that one of the guard in the early 20th, found his inspiration in some of the master’s sketchs… It was great to photograph where Velasquez painted some centuries ago…

The Regiment of the Black Watch

30 August 2006

The Regiment of the Black Watch is normally located in Scotland… I was supposed to photograph the Pipes and drums of the regiment but finally had a chance to visit it in Belfast, North Ireland where they will stay for two more years. I found the black watch regiment more than impressive, with a very brit style and a powerful attitude. Imagine these bagpipers, during the first world war, walking straight to the battle with a bagpipe for only weapon… That can be only impressive and somehow surrealist. But it works.

Workshop at the Fatamargona school

17 August 2006

A workshop at the Fatamargona school may finish like that… The interesting thing with that danish school of photography (where Morten Nilsson and Anders Petersen are teaching) is that the students seems to test themself a lot, to try to improve something… them as individual standing in the world, its complexity, its absurdity, its obscenity. This image looking more like the conclusion of a happening seems to be a joke and then, watching it longer, is not funny anymore (thinking of History). Rune Mandsbjerg, Johan Rosenmunthe, Flemming Ove Bech, Viktor Storjord, Valdemar Jørgensen are now working on a common project about freedom and photography… something to follow soon on their website…