Gosh, is my photography modern ?
Produced today, certainly, but of great classicism. We are overwhelmed nowadays by still or animated images and to stand out from the crowd, we must force the style, often in color, while somehow pictorialism with today neo-pictorialism and visual photography. But is it still photography as such? A recurring debate. I do not wish to express my opposition because I really like modern photography enriched in a visual way or digitally and I practice it sometimes (monoliths). No quarrel of styles, no, just a reflection on what we see a lot today in the publications. Or if I ask the question differently, are we talking about images or photographs? And soon, perhaps, a return to more refined forms will again be appreciated after the excesses of (de)saturation, decanting, blurring, overprinting ….
  

To introduce my series on silence, a reference perhaps? Walker Evans, documentary photography, vernacular are for me important references when we practice «series». But I also do not give up on strong desire for aesthetics (and I did not say that the photos of W. Evans were not aesthetic!). I do everything possible to make my photographs a two-dimensional field where can flourish more emotions, narratives and why not reflections.

A little bit of technique.
I started photography a little too long ago, as a teenager, when digital did not exist. The time of improvised labs in small bathrooms with fragrant chemistry and above all, with this beautiful barytic paper with deep blacks, velvety whites … Time passing, by taste of novelty, by convenience, at lower cost, I switched to digital. It is not so unpleasant to develop your photos on a screen in broad daylight, comfortably seated… I was a poor silver shooter, I was never very good at masking under the lamp and I don’t miss the lab much. What I miss a lot is the silver rendering, the one already mentioned of baryta paper. Since I’m on the computer, I never stop wanting to reproduce this rendering. And I have a hard time!

Not very fortunate, I have never been able to acquire devices with large sensors and I stayed at the APS-C. And with the rise of definitions, these sensors tend to offer only a reduced dynamic range, cold white and quickly burned, black too quickly completely black, shallow. Large format sensors mitigate these defects and with smaller ones, you have to spend time to develop your files. I use free software, mainly Darktable and I use and abuse its masking capabilities to balance tones, look for details in blacks, calm whites …

My photographs will therefore perhaps be considered traditional, excesses sound so easy in digital. I know the black and white that I don’t like. It’s the digital photos that are “crisp” or metallic. Let me explain. Photographs with excess of local contrast or accentuation, especially if the scene is located outside sunny. Modern sensors and lenses are so nervous that it becomes really difficult to master a shot under the sun. A bright but gray weather finally suits me better.

If there is one thing that does not change, it is the fact that it is the light that makes the photographs !