Honorable Mention
Atlantic Wall - "Slow agony of the beast" ...
DESCRIPTION
"Atlantic wall" is a series of photographs started in 2020. This series offers in its first part "In the mist", already published and twice awarded, a peaceful look at the remains of a tormented period in our history.This is another form of representation, bearing on the same theme. The remains of a tagged bunker exposed to the wear and tear of time. South coast of Landes, France. Photo taken on June 20, 2021.
I called this photo, "Slow agony of the beast" because the concrete block emerging from the earth and thus painted, gives the illusion of a sea animal head, howling its pain above the waves, or coming to seek a last gulp the oxygen essential to its survival. It is clear that this photo takes a look at suffering. On the slow agony of this tormented period in our history and the suffering it inflicted. But also on the fact that the beast is not dead. Proof of this is the emergence of diverse populisms within hard-won democracies.
Ref: The notion of "agony of the beast" refers to "The beast is dead", a comic book album published in 1944, drawn by Edmond-François Calvo, on a screenplay by Victor Dancette, publisher of publications for the youth, and Jacques Zimmermann. Produced under the German occupation, it was published in the third month of the Liberation, but a few months before the end of the conflict in Europe. The album recounts, in two volumes, the Second World War, in the form of animal satire of the conflict and the occupation. The end of the story announces the fall of Hitler without describing it. The story essentially tells the story of the conflict in Europe ...
AUTHOR
Native from a small village in the Landes (France), between the Adour river and the ocean, I very early on fell in love with the great outdoors, seashores and rivers, calm and solitary landscapes.My first camera was the one that my grandfather left me. I was then in university and taking my first steps in film photography with the modest means of the time. I wanted my photos to tell a story, to convey emotions ...
Then the years went by, mainly devoted to work, and it is in the deep Amazon that I lose my last film camera and my last rolls of films. I didn’t practice photography for many years, however thinking of returning to it one day ...
Very attracted to portraiture and the artistic world, it was not until 2017 that I put my foot into the stirrup ... digital this time. I carry out series of portraits of musicians, dancers, actors, screenwriters… whom I meet during artistic events. I then try to develop images that are faithful to the perception I have of what they give me to see and transmit to me. Photography turns into an unsuspected architect of social ties that gradually tear me away from daily labor, opening wide the doors to artistic creation.
In 2019, I discovered the long exposure technique, and I venture on this ground, where time and light offer new spaces of freedom and inspiration. The large spaces that I love find their place here, in another dimension and under another light. The photographic creation generates new emotions, a feeling of plenitude, where the softness and minimalism of the images, reveal the true reflection of the feelings, opening on a peaceful world with which I feel in harmony ...
