Westward, going through valleys and hills, plains and slopes, arrive at the end of the country and imagin further lands.
The atmosphere on the top is very peculiar, halfway between wandering and hope of having arrived.
Last series of photographs Westward, dedicated to the West, the new world : terminal The Dune du Pilat, near Arcachon on the French Atlantic coast. A long Dune of soft and gentle sand moving under the wind. The Atlantic ocean on one side and a pine tree canopy looking like an other ocean on the other side.
Is it a junction, a delimitation, a defending wall against the assaults of the ocean, letting way a few meters every year ? No one knows.
The atmosphere on the top is very peculiar : each person seems to be proud of getting at last on top of the Dune but nobody knows what to do after. Is it the end of something ? Is it the beginning of something ?
I worked with this ambiguous state of feelings and decided to make two interpretations of the same photographs : one in black-and-white and one in colour, bleached colour but colour.
It was a very interesting experience : I understood the reason why I had chosen colour photography from the beginning. The Back and White series is very dramatic and is really drawn by tragedy, it is close to Shakespeare whereas the colour series is very close to Molière, acid, sharp but full of humanity.
I let you feel the difference and let you experience if you are more on a tragedy side or a comedy side of life.
The Pilat Dune
Westward in black’n white
The dune in black and white take us in something close to tragedy, contrasts give the clouds, the sand, the trees a very powerful dimension. You feel mighty small, you could be taking place in play written by William Shakespeare or Jean Racine. A place where things transcend us. Feelings overwhelm us, we are in the middle of a fight, not knowing who from the gods and us would stay …
Illusory fight, in the end only nature wins
Westward in colour
The Dune in colour gains an other dimension, more humain, closser to comedy : live is a cycle with its ups and downs but in the end things are stable and can be reached. The sand evokes the a humain skin, the passionate wind seems to caress this place, changing it kindly.
This idea of comedy does not mean light and frivolous, it is not a way of classifying important or superficial feelings : we are in a play written by Molière, sharp but true.
Other series
I need colour !
Since the increasing power of nationalisms, the gloominess of our governments, the crises and trembles of humain thoughts. This new series wants to oppose light and pleasure to the darkness that invades our minds ! It was a yearning, a need to bring back to the front the richness of bright and transient colours. So my photographs, like paintings, show nature in the brightness of its suits.
