Photographer #444: Laurence Demaison

Laurence Demaison, 1965, France, studied at the School of Architecture of Strasbourg before she started making self-portraits in 1993. Her vast body of work is almost exclusively constituted of photographs of herself. She does not digitally manipulate the images nor does she manipulate the photographs after they have been shot with the exception of chemical inversion for some series. All the techniques she uses are analog and done by herself. The various series have a large array of emotions. They can be poetic, fragile and classical, yet sometimes they are quirky, haunting or even freaky. She is a photographer who seeks the bounderies of what can be done within analog photography and successfully crosses them with grace. Laurence has exhibited her work on numerous occasions, mainly in Western Europe and New York. The photographs have also been released in several monographs. The following images come from the series La Chambre Noire, La Poseuse and Les Bulles.

Website: www.laurencedemaison.com

Photographer #443: Myriam Abdelaziz

Myriam Abdelaziz, 1976, is a French photographer of Egyptian origins and born in Cairo. Her career started in the marketing field in which she worked for seven years after having studied Political Science and Journalism. She decided to pursue a career in photography and graduated from the International Center of Photography in New York in 2006. Since then her work has been published in prestigious magazines as Newsweek, Time Magazine and Eyemazing. She is mainly working on documentary and portraiture stories in the Middle East and Africa. Her work often focuses on current matters as the hardships of the people from Darfur living in Egypt and the revolution in Egypt. She concentrated on the horrific effects of the Rwandan genocide on its survivors who were merely children at the time they were mutilated. She heard the upsetting stories of the victims but was equally shocked by the lack of response from the world community as they are still not getting surgery or psychiatric help. The following images come from the series Egyptian Revolt, Portrait of a Genocide and Darfuris in Cairo.

Website: www.myriamabdelaziz.com

Special #005: Xavier Lucchesi

Photography without a lens? Xavier Lucchesi, 1959, France, uses X-rays and the most efficient scanners to create his bizarre images. He makes images while going through the matter of small and large objects, from animals, bodies, paintings of Picasso to entire trucks. Even though X-ray goes straight through matter it still shows various details of the objects, sometimes revealing secrets invisible to and hidden from the naked eye. Xavier shows us what we can only imagine but also creates a new reality, one that is based on solid objects becoming fantastical entities. His work has been exhibited on numerous occasions, mainly in Europe and Asia. The following images come from the series Radioportraits, Automates and Trafic.

Intrigued to see how he will approach his future projects and what they will reveal to us.
Website: www.x-lucchesi.com

Photographer #442: Vincent Fournier

Vincent Fournier, 1970, France, is an image-maker who combines documentary and staged photography. He studied photography at the École Nationale Supérieure de la Photographie in Arles. His ongoing series entitled Space Project reflects his fascination for the space age. His inspiration stems from various things in his youth and by watching movies as 2001: A Space Odessey and Solaris. His large scale images contain an aspect of humor, mainly due to carefully placing his subjects and objects. For this project, as well as his other personal works, he has traveled around the globe. Tour Operator is a body of work inspired by the book Around the world in 80 days by Jules Vernes. He has documented the transformation of landscapes and the interaction between mankind and the environment. In an intelligent and witty manner he directs our eyes to the bizarre and the usual. In his project The Man Machine he carefully staged robots in urban settings and the spaces where they are being developed. Both his projects Tour Operator and Space Project have been released as books. The following images come from the series Space Project, Tour Operator and The Man Machine.

Website: www.vincentfournier.co.uk

Photographer #432: Eric Bouvet

Eric Bouvet, 1961, France, started his career in 1981 after studying Art and Graphic Industries in Paris. During the 80's he worked as a staff photographer at Gamma agency. In 1990 he launched his freelance career and has since been an independant photojournalist. He has traveled extensively to many conflict zones as Iraq, Iran, Sudan, Somalia, former Yugoslavia and very recently Libya. He has covered the gruesome war in Chechnya for a long period and has visited Afghanistan a dozen of times since 1986, witnissing the various wars the country has suffered. His images have an intimate and up-close character. His work has been published in numerous magazines as Time, Life, Newsweek, Stern and the New York Times magazine. He has worked with a variety of NGO's and charities as Medecins Sans Frontieres and the International Red Cross. His work has received several awards amongst which are five World Press Awards. The following images come from the series The Beginning (Libya), Uzbin Valley (Afghanistan) and Russian Commandos - Chechnya.

Website: www.ericbouvet.com

Photographer #417: Ulrich Lebeuf

Ulrich Lebeuf, 1972, France, is a photojournalist and documentary photographer. He has worked on numerous stories for the French and international press. Next to his photojournalistic work he is interested in themes of popular culture, representation, consumption and the notion of immediate pleasure. The series Antonyme de la pudeur takes a look at the sex industry. It is a glimpse into a world in which Ulrich manages to humanize the actresses, making the viewer reflect on the stereotypes of the business and on our own moral judgments. His work has been published in newspapers and magazines as Le Monde, Libération, Time and National Geographic. His photographs have been shown at several venues as the opening of the Rencontres d'Arles festival in 2006. He is a member of the M.Y.O.P agency. The following images come from the series Antonyme de la pudeur, Tropique du Cancer and Alaska Highway.

Website: www.ulrichlebeuf.fr & www.myop.fr

Photographer #396: Stéphane Remael

Stéphane Remael, 1971, France, is a socially engaged documentary photographer and photojournalist who also concentrates on portraiture. He was a co-founder and member of the Oeil Public Agency between 1996 and 2008. His main focus lies with the human condition, placing mankind in his environment, often those on the margins of society. He has traveled the world to cover humanistic stories from Bolivia, Georgia, China, Nepal to Morocco amongst other places. In Japan he took a close look at an ancient phenomenon called 'evaporation'. After the financial bubble burst in the 90's entire families made suicide pacts and other men who lost their jobs decided to disappear and continue living with a new identity. In Georgia he focused on a remote region in the country called Svaneti. In this region one woman in three is abducted with disasterous outcomes for the women. They are considered impure and have little hope for leading a normal life. His work has been published in numerous French and international newspapers and magazines as Newsweek, TIME and The Wall Street Journal. He is a member of the M.Y.O.P agency. The following images come from the series The Disappeared, Kidnapped for Life and Cabanisation: What is left when you have nothing?

Website: www.stephaneremael.com

Photographer #367: Catherine Larré

Catherine Larré, 1964, France, is a fine art photographer who studied at the Royal College of Art in London. She uses unique lighting techniques to achieve her dream-like images that often take us back to our childhood memories. With bold choices she mostly frames her subjects in odd ways and awkward positions making the viewer wonder and reflect on what he/she is looking at. The photographs of Larré contain a certain serenity. They are mysterious, silent and fragile moments in time. This is also visible in her landscape and animal photography that tend to become supernatural reflections of a thought-out reality. The following images come from three untitled series within her portfolio.

Website: www.catherinelarre.com

Photographer #366: Corinne Rozotte

Corinne Rozotte, 1969, France, is a sociologist and experimental / engaged photographer who works and lives in Paris. Her personal work revolves around the themes of confinement, industrialisation, ageing and environment. She created poetic bodies of work dealing with Alzheimers disease and the subject of obesity. In these projects she combines photography with texts. In Eyes Bigger Than Stomach the french texts clearly take the viewer into a world seen from an obese persons point of view. In her series Contre-Nature she combined a kind of human micro-society with a micro-society of animals. The double exposed images show pigs and hens in their usual environment, being an industrialized setting for a quick and cheap way to feed people. She then photographed the northern suburbs of Paris, an area filled with low income housing blocks and a population pushed into the background of our society. The two images combined create a new reality, making a clear symbolic statement on todays inhumane situation of both human and animal conditions. The following images come from the series Des Yeux Plus Grands que le Ventre (Eyes Bigger Than Stomach), Contre-Nature and Fractures of the Visible.

Website: www.corinnerozotte.com

Photographer #346: Tiane Doan Na Champassak

Tiane Doan Na Champassak, 1973, France, started his photographic career with documentary photography. Now he focuses on fine art photography, however still concentrating on the human being as his subject. His work revolving around acts of faith and questions of identity become close to abstracts photographs. He has released various monographs for which he has traveled to many places around the world as India, Ethiopia, Burma, The Netherlands and others. His project Kolkata is scheduled to be released as a book in 2011. In the city of Calcutta he focused on the extremes; quiet and loud, clean and dirty, modern and old. The continuous duality became his leitmotiv and the reason to concentrate on street life to best represent the chaos of the huge city. The following works come from the series Spleen and Ideal, No Photo and Kolkata.

Website: www.champassak.com

Photographer #305: Frédéric Delangle

Frédéric Delangle, 1965, France, is a conceptual photographer based in France working with a large scale camera. In his ongoing series Pourri, we see large still-lifes of decaying food and other natural products. Coït is a project in which he photographed the act of love-making. The lens was open during the entire act of love-making and the people involved shut the lens when they were finished. It created abstract images that trigger our imagination. In his project Nyctalope, meaning "to see the night", he made night-scapes at rural locations using the headlights of his car as a lightsource. In 2005 and 2006 he also photographed at night in the city of Ahmedabad, India. The shutter was open for periods of 5 to 10 minutes. In the city crowded with people and vehicles, it was the only moment to actually photograph the city itself. The following images come from the series Pourri, Nyctalope and Ahmedabad No Life Last Night.

Website: www.fredericdelangle.com
(Video in French)

Photographer #303: Sabine Delcour

Sabine Delcour, 1968, France, is a landscape photographer working and living in Paris. With a large-scale camera she makes very clear and sharp photographs. In her series Thoroughfares she photographs marginal areas where nature has to make compromises, places where the landscape can be seen as a story of "human nature". In 2006 she realeased the book Autour de Nous (Around Us), a project that came to life while she was in Japan. She photographed unfinished houses and interviewed the local people creating a soundtrack to her work. The stories and destinies of these people combined with the images of houses under construction create a link and a relationship. The following images come from the series Itsas Lurrak, Thoroughfares and Arounds Us.

Website: www.sabinedelcour.com

Photographer #299: Guillaume Herbaut

Guillaume Herbaut, 1970, France, is a documentary photographer with a vast amount of projects and stories in his portfolio. He has been to the region where the Chernobyl disaster happened in 1986 on many occasions. He covered stories on the aftermath, the ghost town of Pripyat which is located only 3 kilometers from the power plant, the nouveau riche coming to build vacation villa's just 200 meters from the forbidden zone, partying youngsters in the third contaminated zone and many others. He also focused on Hiroshima and Urakami, the Japanese places where the US dropped their atomic bombs. Guillaume has traveled the world to cover often harsh stories, from Chechnya to Mexico and from Georgia to Iran. He has released several books amongst which is La Zone, a sensory journey into the heart of Chernobyl's exclusion zone. The following images come from the series Chernobyl Riviera, Urakami and Russia: The Slavic Union.

Website: www.guillaume-herbaut.com

 

Photographer #294: Dorothée Smith

Dorothée Smith, 1985, France, is a young conceptual photographer who studied at the Ecole Nationale Superieure de la Photographie in Arles. Her series Löyly is a sequence of portraits and landscapes. Löyly, Finnish for Steam, is a word that describes the raising of healthy smoke resulting from the transformation of matter; water to steam. This and her reference to Gender Trouble written by Judith Butler have resulted in a series of melancholic images. She photographs people she knows or has some connection with, showing a generation of young men and women who try to have or find an identity that surpasses the standard. They go outside of the borders in who they are as people, but also in their sexual identity. The results are stunning portraits of undetermined or dissolved identities. Dorothée has released three books with blurb. The following images come from the series Löyly, Loon and Spree.

Website: www.dorotheesmith.net

Photographer #278: Denis Rouvre

Denis Rouvre, 1967, France, is a portrait photographer with a large and impressive portfolio. He has photographed an extensive amount of internationally known celebrities throughout the years, but works on many other series, personal and editorial. These numerous series have been exhibited extensively throughout the world. He has also released several books and monographs. The series Senegalese Wrestling won the second prize in the Sports features stories at World Press Photo in 2010. His series Ethnic is a collaboration between Denis and the painter and sculptor David Nal-Vad. The photographs of Denis are sharp, crystal clear and direct. The following images come from his Portraits portfolio and from the series Senegalese Wrestling and Ethnic.

Website: www.rouvre.com

Photographer #263: Denis Dailleux

Denis Dailleux, 1958, France, is a documentary portrait photographer who lives and works in Cairo, Egypt. Due to his passion for Egypt, he has released several books on this country. In 2008 he released Fils de Roi, Portraits d'Égypte which contains a series of low-key photographs taken over the course of fifteen years. He does portraiture out of an honest passion for people, with respect for his subjects. Ghana is his latest project, which he discovered after seeing the book Paul Strand dedicated to this African country. By meeting the people he tries to go beyond appearances to give a personal and magnified vision. Denis has travelled to various countries to make his images, from Uzbekistan to Sudan and from Laos to Yemen. Dailleux's photographs are delicate and poetic. The following images come from the series Ghana, Fils de Roi, Portraits d'Égypte and My Aunt Juliette.

Website: www.denisdailleux.com & www.agencevu.com

Photographer #260: Elise Boularan

Elise Boularan, 1984, France, works with polaroids to create her dreamy and sometimes estranged images. Her work is based on a particular perception of photography of which elliptic narration, silence and quietness are key-words in her research. She strives to retrieve something muted and undefinable in her work. Her photographs are both sharp and blurred and contains the saturated colours and haze of the polaroids. In recent years Elise has been published in numerous magazines world wide and exhibited her work mainly in France but also in various European countries and the US.The following images come from the series FEmâle, Lapsus Prompta and her portfolio Portrait / Musique.

Website: www.eliseboularan.com