Quelques Afriques - Agence VU'

Quelques Afriques

Text by : Brigitte Ollier
Publisher : Filigranes
Release date : 2011
ISBN : 978-2-35046-212-7
Book size : 24 x 30 cm
Language : French
104 pages
57 photographies en bichromie

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“Only pictures”, Bernard Descamps says about the photographs he takes during his trips. “Recognized” images. “Met” pictures. What does it mean? It means that the photographer hopes to meet on his way some pictures he already has in mind. “I travel in order to meet myself”, he also says. That is why he does not travel anywhere. He has his favourite places. Bernard Descamps feels good in Africa.

. Intending to meet landscapes and men, he mixes up with Berbers, Fulani, Bozo people, Pygmy people; the pictures of these men have deeply moved anyone who has looked at them. Thus, for Descamps, the love lies in choices: choices in the distance with the subject, between too far and too close, in the grounds hierarchy inside the picture, in the abstraction level, in the nature of the graphic work he will insert in his picture. He throws the focus off centre, shifts the scene, truncates. Contre-jour, fuzziness, fragmented bodies, stylized reality… He does not cobble up reality; he plays with it.