Scenic Principle

2012

A symbolic dissertation on photographic manipulation.
Printings on silver paper.

Photography is a capture of reality, but with a relative reliability. However, in front of a photograph, one cannot get rid of the idea that it delivers us in good faith elements of reality. This is driven by the balance of proportions and perspectives close to the perception of the human eye and by the detailed rendering of the photographic image which makes the elements appearing in it familiar. This intuitive reproduction encourages a projection of one's own experience of reality into the image and an immediate judgment of what is being viewed.
However, the reality captured by this triptych looks more like an abstract space. This space, like that of the blank page, is disconcerting. It has a fundamental appearance where the familiar is of no help. The photographic testimony then tips over into fiction. And we are forced to really question the nature of what is being looked at. A little manipulation is enough for the substantial to become fictional: a framing, a basic settling and a technical balance between light and photographic mechanics.

In my photographic practice, the manipulation of the image and the creation of a fictional context aims at testing our acuity and stimulating the following question: what exactly do we think we see ? This question leads us to reconsider our deductive automatisms and to figure out which reality the looked photograph is the evidence.
These three photographs are not so much monochromes, but represent a real place. Ironically, that of a photographic studio, a place actually at the basis of images completely created from scratch.