Some of the portrait featured in this project may appear in other works, however in this project most of the portraits I've taken are gathered for me to keep a track of people I met along my projects.
But,
the main goal of this project is to give portrait photography some context.
My mother.
The first portrait was taken at my sister's wedding in Tanzania. This is where my mother shines, at the beach in the sun. I've never quite seen someone look like they belong in the sunshine more than my mother. The fact that my sister was just married helped a lot in her apparent happiness in this photo.
The second portrait helps me prove my point. Here still at the beach still but during winter in Noirmoutier. My mother tired and bit less happy than in Tanzania still manages to find a beach even if it's really windy like it can get in l'herbaudière. Always teaching me to find places where you feel comfortable (Even if it's windy).
My closest friend Noor,
Noor is probably the person that reconciled me with portrait photography. As an upcoming singer she wanted to try to take portrait of her as she had to learn to get comfortable in front of the camera. I was glad to help. It made sense as she was still camera shy and I needed to train my portrait skills as I had been avoiding portrait photography for years.
So we had fun with it. The friendship we have for each other allowed her as much as me to be in a safe space where we could try things, no matter the outcome. We ended up shooting quite a lot. I would follow her to her singing classes, recording session and even went on to set up an actual "professional" shooting.
I'd like to think that in the end this "project" ended up helping her as much as me.
Probably a good summary of our friendship is transcribed trough those portraits, photos that she would probably won't be comfortable to have taken by anybody else and photos I would probably not take if it was someone who I wasn't as close to.
My sister.
Taken as she was getting ready for her wedding, I like this photo because my sister usually refuses to be on photos. In this rare portrait of here I managed to capture my sister true emotion before her wedding. I think she was really happy by her smile but having her whole family and friends clearly shows a small preoccupation in her eyes, and yet I never seen my sister so calm and in control. She went on to have the most amazing wedding, and hopefully an even more beautiful marriage.
When in Rome,
While frantically walking around Rome for three days to try to see as much as possible, I took the time to ask this nun and priest for a portrait. The nun didn't mind posing but the priest wasn't interested in looking at me for the picture even though he was ok with me taking the photograph. It was unusual but welcomed since it gave me this picture where the symmetry between the two is really interesting.
Samuel is the main focus of my project "Between a rock and a hard place",
During my time working with him Samuel always refused to take a portrait. I could take his picture as long as he didn't notice it. This portrait has its importance, as do all portrait you can take from people that don't want to be photographed.
After many unsuccessful tries Samuel finally accepted and I managed to capture Samuel in what I think is a photo that truly represents his shy, mischievous personality, that he normally tries to hide from strangers.
During my project "One acre at a time", I had a chance to meet so many amazing people, but language is likely to be a barrier. Thankfully photography has this amazing ability to allow people to interact no matter the language spoken. However in this case I find it quite sad. Let me explain, Maasai people are often paraded in front of tourist in order to take that "Tanzanian tourist photo", so most Maasai will now ask for money if you try to take photos of them, actually most people will ask for money if you try to take their picture in Tanzania. All because people are fed up with their photographs bein taken without any permission, just because tourist find it "exotic". I would react the same where I at their place.
Nevertheless the context of this photograph is different. As I was working on taking photographs for my work "One acre at a time" This trio (yes, I'm counting the dog.) came up to me asking me to take their picture, soon other started asking me to take their picture as well. It was the first time in Tanzania where people asked me to take photographs them. The connection we had while trying to communicate while taking the photographs was only made possible thanks to the camera I held I my hand and recognized, for the sad reason I mentioned above.
While working on "SéRAC", I had the chance to meet a lot of different profiles. I couldn't include everybody in the project. Like Ségolène here, she works on concepts that are just to complicated, not only to understand but to illustrate. Ségolène works on math equations. Equations that to an untrained eye, like mine just look like hieroglyphs. (She did manage to dumb it down enough so that I could at least understand the concept on what she was working on. I couldn't explain it myself though.)
On a beach somewhere in Zanzibar, I was trying to take a photograph of these guys while they weren't looking at me. However they seem to have some eyes behind their back because as soon as I was going to take the picture they quickly turned to face me. Thankfully they weren't mad and we ended up hanging out on the beach and talking for almost an hour.
In London it what used to be the Nomadic gardens now destroyed, I met this man, Greg if I recall correctly. He was homeless. But we ended up chatting about the neighborhood, how he became homeless and just about life. Seeing how I had my camera I started taking photos of him with his approval. I always liked having a trace of the people I interact with, even if it's just for a chat while coming home from work.
In Stone town, there is this famous spot where people jumps from the docks. It's mostly teenagers that are crazy enough to do it. These daredevils where trying to impress me while I was sitting on the docks. They didn't stop! Backflips, front flips, twists and different poses where executed flawlessly under my entertained eyes.
I avoid taking photographs of people I don't know, especially children. However when asked I will never not tkae the photograph. This is exactly what happened here. These kids seeing how I didn't photograph them while jumping came up to me after and asked to take their picture, which I gladly did.
Félix,
A dear childhood friend. During the summer break as children our families would take us to Noirmoutier where Félix's family has a house. we would often go fishing with his father. Fast forward to recently when I went back to Noirmoutier for the first time since I was a child. To my relief nothing had changed. We would still hunt for crabs on the beach and we still went fishing but now Félix was the one that took me fishing. Here he is with the two crabs we caught the first day, But we had to let them go as they were too small. The second day was way better as we caught two adult crabs and one lobster, but I didn't have my camera unfortunately.
In Cambodia, While walking near the Russian market I stumbled in front of this sympathetic pineapple vendor. He was simply selling his pineapple from this basket sitting on top of his scooter. Naturally I bought some and exchanged the few words in Khmer that I know with him. Since I bought pineapple he was fine with me taking his picture he said to me (half) jokingly. Business is business!
In Cambodia, I took this photograph because these little shop represent so much of what my life was in Bangkok when I was a child. I used to spend so much time browsing through the piles of fake clothes in tiny shops like this one. This woman was kind enough to let me take this photograph even though I didn't buy anything, I try to be smarter than when I was a child and not buy bad quality products such as these ones but I almost gave up my principle for these orange briefs, wouldn't you?
On a remote beach in Zanzibar, I met this Maasai man with whom I talked quite a bit. We ended up having a pretty big common point, our name. Both named Raphael, maybe not the same spelling but same name nevertheless. I ended up asking him how he came to live on the island. As most Maasai you see outside of their villages will tell you, they moved because of the money.
In London, while working on taking a series photographs of a violin maker for a project I spent the most of my time with a French luthier that showed me the way of crafting a violin. She was a great help for me to understand the important step and when to take the photographs. As this was probably one of my first project inside a workplace it was a great help to have her explain to me how to understand how people work and how to navigate the workspace.
