Busy time but...

Hi, I'm back after a long and very busy time !
I hope to have a bit more time now to process the photos from my last trip to Vietnam and Cambodia...
here is a first diptych whose pictures have been taken in the Mekong Delta in Vietnam last December.
It's really a very nice travel destination: People there were very cool, naturally sharing their life moments with us.
I was walking among the palm trees at twilight looking for low light ambiances, and my eyes were hooked by this green house with these three persons enjoying a conversation after maybe a hard day of work.
Very graphic and peaceful moment...

Vietnam_1

Hong Kong I Street mood

Here is a combination of 2 photos i took in HK in the same district, close to Mong Kok station, Kowloon.
I only metered high lights in order to plunge the rest of the pictures in a dramatic dark areas.
This worked great in color but i preferred turn it into a warm black & white version in post-processing in order to strengthen the atmosphere of the scene.

Hk-mood

Weightless

Since Canon introduced the video feature on the 5D MKII digital SLR, things are changing quickly in telling stories, showing or even selling images.
The creative field has never been so opened and the chance to make high quality films with affordable gears will certainly offer different contents in symbiosis with photography enriching the narration and giving interesting opportunities to photographers.
That said, photography remains very popular, and some approaches are the same in film making process as the choice of light, the choice of optical, framing, rendering the picture and colors, etc...
Cinema brings motion and sound while photography by its silent and still side exacerbates the imagination through the evocative power of the image.
The narrative perspective is different, but what seems interesting to me is to see how photography can draw from the film and induce the idea of temporality or movement with still images.
Perhaps this is not new but that changes completely the narration.

I experimented this with this sequence of 3 photos taken at the Palais de Tokyo in Paris.
It is a well known place by the skaters who come to train, repeating figures endlessly.
I was more attracted by the shadows stretched by the sun that I found enigmatic and very graphic.
To reinforce this and give depth, I used a 50mm wide opened to have some blur on the foreground.
These photos were taken at different times. I didn't use the "burst" mode of my camera and these are the shadow of 3 different skaters. This wouldn't give the same feeling at the end...
Each photo works individually, but turning them upside-down and assembling them in a small sequence, the vision and the story is different and leads the movement giving the feeling that the skater is taking off wightlessly.

_mg_7373

Tassili N'Ajjer Mountains

After a long busy period, i'm back with a little collection of landscape pictures i shot in Sahara desert in january 2006, in Tassili N'ajjer National Park in southeast Algeria.
It extends about 500 km and it is mostly protected as Biosphere Reserve and Word Heritage Site.
At sunset or sunrise the light was just amazing, transforming the scenery into a dramatic and mysterious set...

Digital snapshots

Yes, i love the iPhone not only for its smart design and MMI (Man / Machine Interface), but over all for its ability to evolve and fit my daily photographic approach.
It's instant, light, doesn't look like a camera, so that people doesn't pay attention to you, when playing with it.
With it's 3 Mpixels, it's definitively not the best embedded camera in a mobile device of course, and this "poor" resolution limits the print size also ! It's anything but a pro tool i confess !
But for me, it's not an issue and despite its weakness, i consider it as a great experimentation tool that free and extend my vision, just like a digital Polaroid, Lomo or Holga.
Anyway, the story is alway the same in photography: Finally no matter the device and the size... just counts your vision, and how you arrange elements and light into the frame to transmit a mood, a feeling...
These photos were taken in the Arab Word Institute in Paris, designed by the architect Jean Nouvel.

Triptyque1

I do know...

I do know, we left the cold and snow behind us and we are about to enjoy summer...
But, ...i was working on my new website design, trying various combinations to find out interesting picture associations from my production.
These pictures were taken in Paris, close to the Champs Elysées, and i wanted to find a nice balance between the atmosphere of the place, the special lights and colours.

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Photography Exhibition I May 17th > June 21st, 2010

For its first edition, the "Espace Manufacture" of Issy-Les-Moulineau city (France), has chosen the Fine Art Photo Gallery, Angle de Vues, to present contemporary photography through 10 artists from different backgrounds and styles.
This exhibition invite the public to walk between worlds composed of still lifes, landscapes, urban scenes or architectures.

The site of the gallery, www.angledevues.com, allows you to discover a larger share of portfolios of these artists.
The photographers represented are: Masaki Okumura, Haroldo Castro, Laurene Corbiere, Eric Devert William Gall, Corinne Garo, Patrice Larue Frederic Le Mauff, Frederic Roch, Stephane Ruet Suave and Raphael.

Espace Manufacture  I  Exhibition from May 17th to June 21st, 2010
28, esplanade de la Manufacture
92130 Issy-Les-Moulineaux, France

Angle de Vues  I  Fine Art & Contemporary Photography Gallery
43, rue Louis Pasteur
92100 Boulogne Billancourt, France

Shanghai-reflexions
Above: Museum of Shanghai