The title of this book: Regards. Its author André Carrara. It is published by Editions Hemeria. Isabelle-Cécile Le Mée under the title: André Carrara, for the love of women wrote a very nice text from which we have chosen this excerpt.
In Cassis, in the hollow of a calanque, out of sight, a lazy young woman is seated balanced on the edge of a boat, her face hidden under a wide-brimmed white hat, her legs outstretched and her feet penetrating gently in the water. Her black swimsuit underlines her slender silhouette that stands out in the warm southern light. She is incredibly elegant. Everything in the construction of the image participates in this elegance: a distanced point of view which makes the photographer a discreet and accomplice observer, a very graphic use of the decor: clean shapes with clear lines that stand out, reinforced by marked chromatic oppositions. The transparency of the water contrasts with the opacity of the boat. The readability of the photo reinforces the natural style of the young woman. The magnificent and timeless black and white print, evoking the universe of Jacques Henri Lartigue, seems to have been taken for an upcoming issue. Young, fresh, the women who inhabit André Carrara’s shots are not necessarily agency models. Beginner actresses, young women met by chance who pose for the first time in front of a lens offer the photographer beautiful portraits. Beyond the staging, whether the shots are wide or close, the photographer seeks to capture the moment of grace, the one when the woman seems, for a brief moment, to forget the objective, the order, the staging and the role to play, to engage in a more intimate portraits. Through these photographs and for nearly sixty years, André Carrara has painted a portrait of his feminine ideal. Unlike Maxence – Jacques Perrin in Les Demoiselles de Rochefort – this ideal does not have a unique face, it has the changing face of a woman he knows well and in whom all women find themselves, a woman of character, free, independent, strong but revealing her faults, a woman always on the move, determined, inevitably in love. A natural woman, unvarnished but a bit sophisticated. From one photograph to another, we follow a thread that leads us, fluidly, in small touches, to this woman who transcends eras but whose beauty and fashion have always revealed.
Isabelle-Cécile Le Mée
André Carrara : Regards
André Carrara (photographer)
Isabelle-Cécile Le Mée (author)
Dorothea Marciak (preface)
Artistic direction: Fred Rawyler
Published by Hemeria
Format 24.5 x 33 cm, portrait
144 pages
Hardcover
120 B&W and color photographs
ISBN 2490952145, 9782490952144
144 pages
