Is it still possible to satisfy your curiosity outside the paths trampled by the tourist hordes? Is it still possible to meet our fellow human beings otherwise?
Chris Ratier travels across Africa, in all directions, to find meaning in his life. Then, it is a matter of professional who masters the technique and brings creation, his creation of the image.
His work is very far from ethnographic catalogs where the subject provides 95% of the image and the photography still has to be good. Which is still increasingly rare, surely because of the impact of artificial intelligence, if not the fault of the mismanagement and the blandness of images of average Joe which circulate in abundance.
Chris’ works are pretty, well calibrated, clean, sincere and allow a dialogue with an intellectual complicity of understanding and comparison. No need for words for the image to ensure sharing. Quite the opposite of the objectives of these parades of herds of tourists who pollute everything in their path without even realizing it.
These photographs from elsewhere are so rare and of such quality that they create intimate exchanges between strangers. We should therefore certainly not shy away from our pleasure in the work of Chris Ratier.
Thierry Maindrault
