Abandoned dwellings
Entering an abandoned house is always a discovery. What story will a room whose door I push open tell me?
A few forgotten objects, a feeling, and my imagination starts to put the pieces of the jigsaw together to imagine what life might have been like within these walls.
Then it’s time to put the impressions I’ve had into images. Cutting myself off from the world, entering the eye of the storm and forgetting everything around me. Hiding behind my camera, looking through the eye of the cyclops and making the world what I would like it to be.
What motivates the shot may be the light, the graphic aspect, the atmosphere or a particular detail. I don’t try to ensure that the image obtained is an exact reflection of reality, but rather that it faithfully transcribes my feelings on discovering the place. The objects are left in the position in which they are discovered, although I don’t claim to be taking a reportage-style approach, as there would be no point in staging them, since it is precisely this initial arrangement that has partly created the atmosphere of the room.
I prefer to shoot as ‘cleanly’ as possible. To achieve this, I often go to the same place several days apart or at different times to find the light that best matches the feeling I’m experiencing, or that best highlights a particular detail. I also use all the techniques that can help me achieve the desired result: Focus Stacking, HDR for example, while taking care to do as little as possible: retouching is a means not an end.
On the technical side, a 50mm F1.8 lens, with its perspective and angle of vision close to those of a human being, and a tripod are enough to deal with almost any situation.
