Bernard
Bernard Descamps
biography
French photographer, based in Chinon(France)
First trained as a biologist, Bernard Descamps became a photographer in the 1970s. His photographs were published for the first time in 1974, in the mythical Swiss magazine Camera. The following year, his first major exhibition was presented by Jean-Claude Lemagny at the Bibliothèque nationale de France, and in 1978, Pierre de Fenoyl offered him an exhibition at the Centre Pompidou in Paris, Rétrospective restreinte. He joined the founders of the VU’ Agency at its creation in 1986.
For fifty years, Bernard Descamps has explored photography in all its forms, from reportage to landscape and portraiture, from black and white to color. As a tireless traveler, he has visited many countries, meeting people and their customs (Mali, India, Japan, Venezuela, Vietnam, Madagascar, Morocco, etc). .
However, he proposes a travel photography that is above all that of an inner journey: his images, which pure lines often approach abstraction, “do not describe objects or events” but “would like to reveal tiny fragments of time” in his own words.
Author of fourteen monographs, Bernard Descamps is exhibited in numerous galleries and museums and represented by the Camera Obscura Gallery in Paris and the Box Gallery in Brussels. In parallel to his work, Bernard Descamps participates actively in the development and recognition of photography: in 1994 he co-founded with Françoise Huguier the first African photography meetings in Bamako (Mali), and from 1994 to 2012 he was artistic director of the theater La Passerelle in Gap (France).
Series
Quelques Afriques, 2011
Lady Land, 2009
Japan, 1992-1995
Sahara, 1987
Right here, 2012
Quelques Afriques, 2011
Lady Land, 2009
Japan, 1992-1995
Sahara, 1987
Right here, 2012
Quelques Afriques, 2011
Lady Land, 2009
Japan, 1992-1995
Sahara, 1987
Interviews
Discussion with Bernard Descamps
Château de Tours
—
2022
On the occasion of his exhibition “Au-delà des apparences” at the Château de Tours, Bernard Descamps talks about his monograph.
Screening and debate with Bernard Descamps
Cité de l’architecture et du patrimoine
—
2017
Much more than landscapes, Bernard Descamps photographs poetic situations. From Africa to Iceland, he travels the world, appropriating sites and moments. The spaces he composes in his images are the sensitive traces of inner journeys. Oscillating between dream and reality, his images brush on abstraction while revealing the presences that inhabit the places he crosses. Very graphically constructed, his images are nonetheless lively and spontaneous photographic encounters.
Projection-debate in the presence of Bernard Descamps, Sophie Bernard, author, journalist, curator, and Dominique Marchès, photographer, art centre director, curator.
Bernard Descamps
Festival Planche(s) Contact, Deauville
—
2016
A master of black and white photography, Bernard Descamps loves the curves of beaches and deserts, bird skies and beach lights. Since the 80’s, with a unique sense of framing and composition, Bernard Descamps has been using the square format that purifies et recomposes the landscapes of Africa, the streets of Tokyo or the northern beaches in winter. In Deauville, he takes back his favorite posture, the photographer-traveler one who walks for a long time and strides beach and city, empty or invested spaces, during the week-end as well as the week. This is how he reveals it, in nuances and in all its lights.
What happened to our dreams?
LCR Belgique
—
2015
Let’s take a look at the view of a photographer who transforms every situation into poetry. Bernard Descamps is the guest of LCR Belgium for his new book ” Où sont passés nos rêves ” published by Éditions Filigranes.
Lady Land
Filigranes
—
2009
Bernard Descamps, contrary to other publications often related to countries or travels, makes us discover here, in this book Lady Land, his own poetic and personal vision with a great sensuality translated in these black and white images by shades of gray.
Exhibitions
Bernard Descamps – Natura
—
Festival Photo La Gacilly – Baden, AUSTRIA
—
From June 15 to October 15, 2023
Bernard Descamps – ” Au-delà des apparences ”
—
Château de Tours, Tours, France
—
From October 28, 2022 to April 16, 2023
BOOKS
Essentiel
Au-delà des apparences
Le Singe qui regardait l’étoile
Natura
Autoportrait
Où sont passés nos rêves?
Ici même
Quelques Afriques
Lady Land
Silences-Lieux sacrés de l'Inde du sud
Evening Land
Japon
Berbère, haut atlas marocain
Le don du fleuve
Pygmées, l'esprit de la forêt
Sahara
Essentiel
Au-delà des apparences
Le Singe qui regardait l’étoile
Natura
Autoportrait
Où sont passés nos rêves?
Ici même
Quelques Afriques
Lady Land
Silences-Lieux sacrés de l'Inde du sud
Evening Land
Japon
Berbère, haut atlas marocain
Le don du fleuve
Pygmées, l'esprit de la forêt
Sahara
Essentiel
Au-delà des apparences
Le Singe qui regardait l’étoile
Natura
Autoportrait
Où sont passés nos rêves?
Ici même
Quelques Afriques
Lady Land
Silences-Lieux sacrés de l'Inde du sud
Evening Land
Japon
Berbère, haut atlas marocain
Le don du fleuve
Pygmées, l'esprit de la forêt
Sahara
AWARDS
Humanity photo Award – 2nd Prize (UNESCO)
For the series “Le don du Fleuve”
2004
Humanity photo Award – 3rd Prize (UNESCO)
For the series “Pygmées, l’esprit de la forêt”
2000
Prix Médicis Hors les Murs
1992
Grants of the Fondation nationale de la photographie
1979