The model and the void
I cannot thank the people who pose for me enough. They agree to lay bare in front of a cold wall, sit on a high chair, and wait. Having myself posed for others, I felt the emptiness in this anti-decor : nothing apart from the presence of my body, nothing to think about, nothing to say, almost nothing to listen to, except the demands of the photographer.
It is in this void that the model occupies their space: shapes, curves, textures, shadows, colors, expressions, movements … The model does not settle in this vacuum, the vacuum is created around them, gradually, like an aurora floods the sky with light in the ink of the night. It can take a long time. And when the silence is almost palpable, and the void is there, and it has imposed itself on the set, and it has interfered in the mind of the model, then something happens unheard, sublime. I just have to change an angle, a pose, a movement. The model is no longer the same, they are more beautiful, more alive, unique. It’s a mirage, I know; it’s the story I’m telling myself.
But who said that mirages were not real ? Mirages are images and I capture images. So when the model reveals for a fraction of a second the illusion of a gesture, an expression or a look that no one has ever seen, not even the model itself, when I believe, too, that I see something that has never existed and which, in fact, exists only in my imagination, it is a very real emotion that overwhelms me. It is for this emotion that I make my images, born of this connivance with the model or the tree or the landscape. It is my fix, my sweet intoxication, my climax.
Later, when I edit the image, it is with the approach of an archaeologist. It is as if, with a very small brush and spoon, I was revealing a cathedral. Layer after layer, mask after mask, from texture to texture, I humbly try to shed light on what had never been discovered. Of course, I do not build cathedrals. Of course, my models are not goddesses. But I believe it.
All those who agreed to pose for me, fleeting acquaintances or close friends, I thank you every day for putting colors in my heart with my carbon images.
