{"id":98792,"date":"2007-01-05T11:47:39","date_gmt":"2007-01-05T10:47:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lesaint.abvent.com\/serie\/enfances-2007\/"},"modified":"2021-03-16T14:12:24","modified_gmt":"2021-03-16T13:12:24","slug":"childhood-2007","status":"publish","type":"serie","link":"https:\/\/agencevu.com\/en\/serie\/childhood-2007\/","title":{"rendered":"Childhood, 2007"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Series<\/a><\/p>\n

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Childhood, 2007<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div><\/section>\n

Vincent Migeat<\/a><\/h5>\n<\/div><\/section>\n

This entire story begins with a little framed picture, which was at my wife parents\u2019 home. This picture was put down on an old secretaire, and one day I tend to photograph it. When I examined it more precisely, I discover a strange thing…<\/p>\n

The seventh birthday<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a small family picture, pretty common actually, like the ones we often see in every family album or the ones in a good place on the home chimney. It was a portrait. There were the father, the mother and the two sons. Everybody was dressed to kill, it was an important day, a birthday. This photograph is meaningless in its composition and yet exceptional. With a closer look, when approaching, when scrutinizing the two little boys that stand between the mother and father, something does not seem right; this picture is tricked, yes tricked. Somebody has been added.<\/p>\n

The little boy on the right side, it\u2019s my mother-in-law\u2019s father between his parents. They went downtown and visited the best photographer in town. They paused in a calculated way, letting a room for their first boy, dead seven years earlier from a bad hit in the belly at school. And then, they handed a portrait of him so that the photographer could add it to the portrait. (\u201cYou can do that, can\u2019t you?\u201d)<\/p>\n

This picture is disturbing because it asked a central question in photography: time and death, disturbing because it shows and expresses better than long speeches the dreadful and unquenchable suffering of parents facing the loss of a child.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div>

And then, I had children myself. A girl first, that we named Ad\u00e8le, and then, a few years later, a boy, Simon. Very naturally, like any Dad, I took pictures of their first steps, their first smiles, their first days at school. A bit to garnish the family album, a bit too to remember those unique moments and save some slices on the side for later.<\/p>\n

After a few years, I realized that those pictures were going further than just a family portrait and that it could have a photographic interest. So I keep on chronicling day by day their own evolutions.
\nI would like never to stop and one day give them a proper family album.<\/p>\n

I am thinking again to this strange photo, admittedly morbid, but so moving, and to all the wonderful pictures along the pages of the album. It\u2019s a neglected aspect of photography, often despised, but maybe one of the most important. Taking part of the construction of a family memory.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div>

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