For Planche(s) Contact, Henry Roy has followed the departure of the sailors competing in the Solitaire du Figaro (sailboat competition) – Eric Bompard cachemire, including the race preparations between the May 29th and June 8th 2014. He gives us an unusual view of a great sporting event that, for the first time, chose to set sail from Deauville.
Henry Roy – Visions of Deauville
I confess knowing very little about sailing, and am far from being a sports photographer. However, I have visited Deauville many times with my family over the last decade (a town I have much photographed). My first reaction when asked to photograph the start of the Figaro Sailing Race was that I was not legitimate for this. But I immediately welcomed the suggestion as a new experience that would allow me to revisit this familiar landscape. This series is a flanerie on the verge of an event of which only fragments are visible.
With an amateur candor, I photographed what caught my attention – as if in a dream. Every gaze being inherently singular, I left aside the rules and formulas usually in use when covering such an event. My opinion is that the true restitution of one’s own perception of a given moment, guided only by intuition, is the most authentic manner to deal with a situation.
Each photo produced after intense observation becomes a sign charged with its own energy, itself implied in the restitution of a feeling, a sensation, or reminiscence. It is both a gift from chance, and a photographer’s essential expression. Beyond style, it is a vision of the world, and of oneself, an attitude to existence. A particular moment remains inscribed in my recollection of the experience: that of the first competitor sailing away once passed beyond the departure line, one hand on the helm and the other waving at the press, his boat tilted by the waves, racing to the unknown.
I then forcefully perceived the admiration and respect inspired by such great adventurous sailors whose disposition is shaped by the winds. Of that particular emotion that no image could actually convey, you will see nothing of. But it remains engraved in the hard disc of my memory. And it will no doubt resurface, in a different shape, elsewhere, at an opportune future moment.
Henry Roy (August 2014)
Henry Roy was born in Port-au-Prince (Haiti) in 1963.
He lives and works in Paris.
www.henryroy.com
FESTIVAL
Planche(s) Contact 2014
Visions deauvillaises
Henry Roy
From October 25th to November 30th, 2014
Chapelle des Franciscaines
Avenue de la République
14800 Deauville
France
