Thierry Maindrault’s Monthly Cogitations
You will have noticed although this year the transition was less festive, we changed calendar years and moved into 2026. This gives me the opportunity, in passing, to sincerely wish you the realisation of your hopes, supported by excellent health. But you may not have paid attention to the fact that this time hinge has carried us into a new quarter-century. And yet, without our being very attentive, it is the quarter-centuries that conspicuously mark the shifts in our human communities. A century is nothing more than a label for filing in the archives of History. But quarter-centuries leave real imprints on our evolution.
Thus the third quarter of the twentieth century opened onto Freedom, in all its political, religious, economic, philosophical and behavioural forms. It was also a surge of creativity bursting forth in every field—science, the arts, technology, biology, communication. “Enough already, the cup runneth over,” our grandparents would say those who went from the horse (or even oxen) to the imprint of a human foot on the Moon. Everything seemed possible, since it was forbidden to forbid (a vast programme).
The last quarter-century and, at the same time, that of the millennium brought us rationalisation and a structural invasion across all those once-effervescent domains. Administration took precedence over the human being. Regulations blossomed like the multiplication of loaves (an old story!). Straitjackets and constraints killed all innovative creativity; every impulse toward expansion was systematically pushed back onto strictly marked paths. That corset generated a growing force of protest in all its forms. Rebellion took the place of Freedom. Carried along by the previous period, despite the early signs of major turmoil, humanity settled comfortably on its acquired advantages. “Silence implies consent”: it is in this phase that citizens of enclaves so-called democratic got used to no longer voting for a project, for a future, but voting against someone especially if that person risked calling into question their own small, supposedly comfortable seat.
The first quarter of the new century and the new millennium ended barely a week ago. I may be mistaken, for lack of perspective, perched as I am; but the lines that will mark History leave a very legible imprint on our planet. Uniformity and levelling-down are (forgive me the crude expression) the two breasts of this era known as globalisation. It is obvious that managerial gigantism and a boundless financial thirst have laid a leaden blanket over collective intelligence to the point of making us believe that this new cycle now beginning will spare us our own intelligence and our work. These two pillars of a life become useless, because computers and robots will offer us idleness and intellectual lobotomy. This first part of the century has generated with the blessing of gigantic structures (economic, political, religious, financial) billions of idlers who have absorbed the idea that everything is done and programmed for their happiness. “Idleness is a terrible habit”: the Roman Empire discovered that a little too late.
You may tell me that this time I am completely straying from my subject. Not at all! We are right in the middle of it. Everything written above is about Photography its history, its lived experience, its unfolding. It is both actor and witness to these enduring cycles, in complicity with light, life fixed by images, now on countless walls.
1950–1975: photography truly took off, because everything favoured it. Equipment, materials and accessories had been rejuvenated. Cameras obeyed the photographer, who mastered their new subtleties (to the extent of his or her personal competence). The services associated with creation were still limited to the strictly technical pathways of the image. This striking evolution concerned absolutely all types of photography, from portrait to industry, reportage to scientific, landscape to show business, fashion to social, etc. Every photographer was affected by these new technological possibilities. At the same time, creativity became rooted among authors thanks to the portability of the gear, as they were carried by the surrounding breath of freedom and imagination. “Academic photography” quietly faded away.
1975–2000: Photography became administratively structured; intermediaries and the first parasites invited themselves into the landscape; museums progressively installed more and more photographs on their walls. The public entering this era of leisure and tourism did not resist too much. Photography was pleasing, it caught the eye, was accessible, since everyone owned a camera (economically within reach with all those plastic bodies, or affordable high-end Japanese models). The press is full of images of all kinds, even in highly technical and indigestible magazines, for novices, are overflowing with photographs. Our Photography holds centre stage and enriches its professional servants. Collective carelessness and the fierce independence of photographic authors mask any perception of the storm coming up and of the hurricane already forming by the end of this period.
2000–2025: what was an anecdotal curiosity at the dawn of the millennium, turned in less than half a decade, into a tsunami that covered the entire planet globalisation obliges. Digital photography imposed itself to the point of rendering all other living technologies dead. A gigantic short-term revenue source, digital selection and management invaded the market. When commercial messages whip up a supposed equality non-existent in reality between light sensors, everyone became a Leonardo da Vinci of photography. At the same time, uses of the image underwent profound changes for the same technological reasons. The icing on the cake is the apotheosis of diverting the internet communication tool into a kind of fairground where participants are all friends or followers, according to some obscure rites. Everyone, virtually present, strives to be recognised in order to exist. Everyone has become a talented photographer (from author-photographer to artist-photographer, passing by artisan-photographer). A plethora of photographers I wonder whether there are not more photographers than images that are fully accomplished and definitive for any effective use. The whole world takes photographs, each trying to make the same one as their neighbour (the brightest attempting to copy images of media-promoted authors). On a personal level, everyone values themselves first, ahead of their own work, by trying to explain the inexplicable. The end of the period saw a new banner bloom on every floor: “AI”. I believe I have discovered, what it means: “Artificially Inexplicable”.
2025–2050: without trying to play the fortune-teller and while remaining optimistic without losing lucidity (these two notions becoming somewhat contradictory), is this what awaits us? This unreserved reliance on digital computing is set to become the leitmotiv of this quarter-century now beginning. This craze will continue to grow and be democratised for all. The refrigerator that self-manages and self-supplies; the robot that pours a beer and brings it to your table (before you even enter the bar); your tablet that rereads a contract before signing it in your place these are already at our door. The camera that searches global databases for the best existing image, or a blend of two or more images, to fabricate the ideal image of the place you have just captured. How fascinating all this is. It is obvious that a significant number of sectors of photography risk drowning without a buoy. And yet, during a recent assignment, I learned that for two or three years professional photography has experienced a considerable rebound with the arrival of new administrative registrations. A pharmacy assistant found this new profession attractive, acknowledging after her uncertain beginnings that she needed to learn what Photography was. No problem: she was doing an internship with a teacher who had taken an interest in photography two years earlier. The other students, already registered as wildlife photographers, industrial photographers or children’s portraitists, found photography relaxing and not as complicated as people claim.
In the end, between 1950 and 2025, I must not have been attentive enough. Talented photographers in difficulty, you did not understand everything—this seems obvious! Artificially Inexplicable is holding out its arms to you. Be careful not to end like Antaeus in the arms of Hercules.
Thierry Maindrault, January 9, 2026
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