Quelques Afriques, 2011
“Only pictures”, Bernard Descamps says about the photographs he takes during his trips. “Recognized” images. “Meet” 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 favorite 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 populations have deeply moved anyone who has looked at them.
Thus, for Descamps, the love lies in 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 center, shifts the scene, truncates. Contre-jour, fuzziness, fragmented bodies, stylized reality…
He does not cobble up reality, he plays with it.
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Hôtel Paul Delaroche
58 rue Saint Lazare, 75009 Paris
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