Near the ocean
This photographic work is a continuation of the research I began when I was a student at the Faculty of Visual Arts in Saint Etienne.
At that time, I was studying photography and, at the same time, I discovered engraving. I tried to combine these two techniques, photography and engraving, but without achieving a conclusive result. Today, as an artist and teacher, I found by chance a box of engravings and a collection of old postcards, and saw in them a similarity between these two types of image-making. The question was how to combine these two worlds, and my research led me first to older techniques such as cyanotype and the Van Dyck process. Then I looked into the possibilities of combining my skills as a visual artist with those of digital photography.
That’s how I developed an approach that consists in creating graphic filters combined with my shots and creating this result. Too many photographs make you see everything, right away. With my landscapes, I try to trick the viewer’s eye, to make him question things. They wonder about what they’re being shown. What is it? A photo, an engraving, a drawing. It’s by getting closer that he understands.
