A Tribute to Street and Travel Photography
Street photography …
Or my best way to realize the richness offered by the urban life around us. It is through this type of photography that I started discovering the pleasure we take in “immortalizing” moments of life.
New York City, 2019.
These scenes which happen just in front of us, these scenes we look at, but that we don’t see for real. Scenes which first appears as being very basic, but which can finally be full of meaning when we change the way we look, or in other words, our viewing perspective.
New York City, 2019.
Taking the camera and doing street photography gives this ability. The power to compose with other people, with the elements that surround us, as simple as they are, as complex as they can be. It gives the ability to play with light in places we live in every day, at every moment, but in unattractive contexts.
New York City, 2019.
Going to work, using the metro, waiting for the bus, being in the noise and the constant rush of a city. Those moments we feels mainly the negative aspect rather than the positive one. But all of these feelings change when we decide to take our time. When we look up and we observe for real what and who is around us. And when we use the camera to do so, having the ambition to press pause on what we are about to discover.
Dubaï, 2020.
At this moment, the din, the klaxons, the phone conversations around us become less agressive, less violent, less present. Everything around us appears and seems to move slower because in some way, we accept to slow down our own flow.
Paris, 2021.
So we start seeing a group of friends taking a coffee or a beautiful couple having a walk. We find an invasive advertising poster, this person who walks his dog or that businessman who takes his taxi. We observe these tourists enjoying their selfies, that worker taking his break and this woman who seems to be absorbed by the book she is holding in her hands. Or that other person, deeply thinking about his life with a cigarette in hand.
New York City, 2019.
So many stories, so many messages, thoughts and moments. So many different situations and atmospheres that we only see when, once again, we decide to slow down and take our time. Personally, having my camera helps me to do this effort. And yes, it is a daily challenge, especially when you practice where you use to live.
Santorini, 2020.
Because what’s great about street photography is that there is always something going on, wherever you are, that makes you want to have the camera with us all the time. This is also where travels come in. I like discovering breathtaking natural landscapes as much as cities or villages with a very different culture and architecture from those I know.
Cuba, La Havana, 2018.
And there is so much going on there. Probably as much as where I live everyday, but discovering a new place naturally gives me a different photographic look. When I travel, I often have the urge to trigger on everything, because everything seems interesting to me.
Being abroad put me natively in a state of observation, in a state of constant pause, the same state which is in general so difficult to have in my daily life.
Warsaw, 2018.
However, very quickly, I understand that the most interesting is elsewhere. I understand what makes the value of where I have the chance to be. I understand how local people work and use to live, I feel carried away by what surrounds me and then I try to focus on the essentials. So one single question remains : what stories do I want to take with me ?
Dubaï, 2020.
In other words, what do I think will help me to transcribe what I saw, what I realized and the look or the vision I had during my trip. So, once I find the answer, my eyes and my intentions become the right ones, and the major scenes and compositions appears as a gift.
Warsaw, 2018.
So many scenes which blow me while they write the story of my journey in the same time. These scenes, captured at the bend of an alley, sitting at the table of a cafe, during a nice visit or on the main boulevard of a capital.
Paris, 2021.
These scenes that I saw because I accepted.
Accepted to slow down
Accepted to stop
Accepted to take the time
Accepted to look up
Accepted to look for real and so to finally see
Accepted to understand
Accepted to trigger
Paris, 2021.
These scenes that I can tell because even if I couldn’t talk anymore, I will always have the ability to show it to the world.
When I think about travel photography, streets are of course a big part of it, at least for my style of photography. But I also think a lot about landscapes and cityscapes.
Thinking about landscapes…
Santorini, 2019.
Whatever they are, they’re always extraordinary to my eyes. They are so wonderful that they remind me at every moment that they are not our creation and will never be. As a photographer, meeting with them is always something very special.
Santorini, 2019.
Indeed, unlike human beings, a landscape never feels disturbed by a photograph, never attacked, injured, offended.
A landscape is not afraid, fearful or narcissistic. It is neither shy nor introvert, nor pretentious or a bit too much extroverted.
Crete, 2019.
A landscape always lets us come to it. It lets us speak to it through our emotions, admire, listen and contemplate it. It accepts that we feel its atmosphere and it gives us the time to ask ourselves the right questions. Questions about its beauty and its truth, because a landscape cannot cheat us neither hide himself. Questions about its strength, its colors, its creation and about what it does not express out of humility but what it feels and experiments.
Santorini, 2019.
Having all these questions in mind, it happens that very moment where a kind of a connection is created. We remember why the landscapes exists, and we understand that this existence is directly linked to ours. So, when we think that we have already seen and understood everything of what is in front of us, only then the perfect light we were waiting for appears, as an evidence.
Italy, Nettuno, 2019.
This magnificent moment, this instant of gold and magic that is given to us, there, under our eyes and in front of the mirror of our camera. So, there are only two things that we can and that we have to do, so simple and so important.
To trigger and capture the present moment and to enjoy the splendor and authenticity of His creation.
Crete, 2019.
Landscapes have this sensitivity that other subjects do not have. We remember that it happens that we hurt them because of what we inflict on them, often despite ourselves, sometimes even without knowing it. It even happens that we completely forget about them. But despite everything, with no hard feelings, they still show us the best they can offer. Their generosity is flawless as long as we dare to go out to meet them.
Dubaï, 2020.
Like a very old person, their wisdom coexists with endangered health and wrinkles which testify on their past. Injured by life and men, landscapes cannot lie. They are honest, transparent and they show themselves as they really are.
Dubaï, 2020.
So when the capture is done, the guilt faces pride and the regret faces humility. Personally, I feel guilty for having forgotten that this earth does not belong to us. It was only entrusted to us, as a vital element in our existence, an element so strong and so fragile at the same time. I feel proud to have given it the honor it deserves, to have given it my time, and to have seen it reward me for that. I regret not having acted more for its cause and not having contemplated it even more. And I talk about humility, because we acquire it thanks to the reminders and learning that it and his Creator gave us as a precious gift.
Santorini, 2019.
Yes, landscape photography offers us this subtle journey, so strong and so addictive, at each every photographic process. This very path that makes us put away the camera with the haste to bring it out for a new extraordinary meeting of this kind. With the burning desire to discover again these spaces of shadows and lights, spaces of earth, spaces of sand, rock and sea, spaces of colors and water. These spaces that are different from yesterday every time they land in front of us, and which hopefully will always be even more beautiful tomorrow.
Talking about cityscapes…
Santorini, 2019.
It is something very different because it is the result of our history and the times we are going through. It is the result of what we, as human beings, have created with our hands and of what we have a very easy and voluntary influence on.
Santorini, 2019.
Sometimes simplistic, sometimes complex, sometimes calm or noisy. Sometimes so high and strong when you look at it from the ground, sometimes so small and fragile seen from the sky. Sometimes built with sands and straw, sometimes with rocks, glass and steel.
Santorini, 2019.
Some cityscapes reminds us of old times, immerses us so deeply in the past that we prefer to observe them in black and white. Some cityscapes are remarkable, full of life and movement, impressive for their architecture so we prefer to enjoy them in colors.
Santorini, 2019.
They are known or not, prized or deserted, but in all cases, they have their own and unique identity. As photographers, we certainly want to know them to make them known to the whole world. Maybe because they represent the place where we live, the place where we lived in the past, or where we only came to share a good time.
Also because history proves us that what they are today, will not be what they will become tomorrow.
Santorini, 2019.
Cities have evolved or grown, they have been destroyed and rebuilt, and they have, sometimes, simply disappeared. Considering this, the cityscape is not that different from the natural landscape.
Santorini, 2019.
Yes, it is also under the human being’s responsibility, and we all think that it belongs to us. But we don’t have the total control on it. Indeed, it is always good to remember that a wave which is a little too rough or a wind a little too nervous can easily make it disappear.
Santorini, 2019.
So it is also important to give it time. To take the time to discover it, to meet those who live there. To take the time to understand and share the culture we found there, to explore all of its hidden corners, its streets, avenues and its monuments.
Santorini, 2019.
And once this is done, when we think we know it, that we have the right way to look at it, that we have created memories which will follow us to the end, then comes the time to get a little closer to the ground, or to take a little height.
Santorini, 2019.
The time to take the camera and to find the perfect composition. The one where lights and shadows communicate with the same language, as if to tell us that everything is there, together, so that we can, finally, trigger and shoot.
Santorini, 2019.
Travel and street photography brought me so much since I started taking photographs, and in the same time, photography helped me so much to understand, see and think better about the world and the people I meet. I really think it made me more humble, and in general, it helped me become a better person. For all theses reasons, I wanted to make that tribute, and to show gratitude to everything and anything which is a part of my photographic journey, and my global journey in this world.