Notebooks, 2006
A state of mind. A way to travel too. Walking this strange little black box in our steps and feeding it with light. It’s the road notebook, Moleskine, this little nothing, in which we write everything: our observations, seated on a low wall, against a tree, or back to a wall. Words are scribbled fatly, no work on the sentence, just sketched. Picture-Words. We need to go fast, not losing anything. Everything will be organized later, once we’re back. Photographic notebooks observe the same rules. Its a matter of taking hold of, sometimes by guesswork, moments, scenes, places, with the idea of doing something with it, but later. The notebook has no terms of reference. It’s the anti-story. The complete freedom. What do we seek? The answer will come later. If it was dared to do a comparison, it would be free-jazz, improvisation. Carefully handling fates, let them room. So, the photographer become a fisherman, he doesn’t count his time anymore, he’s observing.
He’s waiting for a picture, this funny stuff that he can’t define. Moreover, he felt it more than he sees it. Views are all linked and the light is turned down, soon it will be night. It will be time to come back. I can’t imagine another way to “work” during a trip. Any way, it’s useless to try to understand everything. So, we need to take. Taking as long as we’re here. It will be time later to understand, when we will see our pictures harvest. Once shot, pictures are captive. At least, that’s what we believe in. Until that day when it reveals us more and more surprise and discovers. Sometimes, it finishes to organize itself, to reply each other, it wants to form a whole. Well, that’s what we imagine. At this moment, words can come in. Leaning on pictures, they find again fresh blood, and memory wakes up again. Such detail in the picture wakes up such a memory that we thought vanished. Then, we can write.
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Hôtel Paul Delaroche
58 rue Saint Lazare, 75009 Paris
+33 1 53 01 85 85
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