At twenty, the years are our only baggage
Experience comes from the parents
We take nothing seriously
We always run after happiness
Love is for life
Life which lasts the time of a scream
Of a perm or a pair of jeans
For the rest we imagine
For all luggage we have our mug
If it’s cute it’s easy
If it’s ugly one gets used to it
We tell ourselves it’s not so bad
We beat our fate like breams
We try everything, we say “I love you”
Whether Libra or Leo
We don’t care, we’re lions
Leo Ferré – 20 ans
Arles celebrates its fiftieth birthday – in 1979 the tenth anniversary was celebrated and I was a quarter century old. The photo acquired nobility and Arles celebrated its last years of innocence. Agathe Gaillard had opened the first Parisian gallery, and Jacques-Henri Lartigue marveled at the arrival of Andre Kertesz. color photography was not yet recognised, considered too vulgar, and photojournalist considered as authors I was the special correspondent for “PHOTO” magazine, and wondered about Ralf Gibson’s female nudes while chasing Don McCullin, my hero.
The future seemed bright! Magazines, were few, and used photographs, and sometimes photographers, with respect. One did not forget to pay the royalties, the gratuity did not occur. Assignments were not uncommon, you could smoke in the stations, people were not riveted to their phones, in their narcissistic delirium. It was forty years ago!
Arles was not yet twenty years old, and already as Leo said “For all luggage we have our mug. If it’s cute it’s easy”. How is the mug, of Arles, at fifty?
Yan Morvan
