How was the exhibition conceived ?
The exhibition is based on a series of photos which I have worked on for years, they have all taken different forms. Initially, I planned to make a slideshow and a book. Eventually, it became a kind of backpack of images that I have lugged around for a long time and from which I pick different selections depending on the space in which they are presented.
Why “Ressac”?
“Ressac” is the moment that the wave breaks and changes direction, it is the idea of energy, of movement, a rhythm like a heartbeat and also the movement of the planets. So “Ressac” is a metaphor for how I work, to know that I often return to the same themes, I retrace my steps...This idea of movement, of continuously going back and forth, is in principle the same, but always ends up being different. There is also a reference to the world of water, on the border between land and sea, and in many of my photos, it is impossible to determine the location, time (is is day or night?), it is sometimes on the border of readability. Also, the picture is not descriptive, looking at the result, the viewer does not see a photographed scene of his point of departure, and this in-between is important. I do not do documentary photography or photojournalism, even if it's where I come from, but it does leave a trace, like the cockfight at the entrance of the expo. I was inspired by Juan Rulfo’s Coq d’or (Golden Rooster) and Malcolm Lowry’s book, Under the Volcano. Many books are starting points.
What brings you from drawing to photography?
I don’t have the same immediate result and perspective. Photography can often shock. Often when we are cutting the negatives, we discover something that we absolutely did not see before. The two guys at the entrance is a photo I took more than 20 years ago. I stumbled upon it again, I know the date as I wrote it down, but I remember only to have taken it. It’s a wave of emotion that I haven’t looked for again. Once it is shown, it doesn’t concern me anymore. I want it to be in that world, whether in a slideshow, a book, associated with something else, it takes on another dimension that reconsiders the question each time. There are enough old photos, recent ones and others that I’ve been slow to release.
What is your slideshow project?
It is a collective project, Zero Time, with Stéphane Charpentier, inviting a number of photographers to offer a short 3-minute program, an evening of projections. There is this idea of editing, cinema. The idea of a montage is fitting for this chronophotography, these 4 pictures that each tell a seperate story, a heartbeat.
All on film?
I don’t do digital prints, I develop my own photos, I always have. Nowadays it’s almost become a hinderance to work like this. Film is very expensive, and increasingly rare, chemistry and films are complicated to find. But it allows me to work in black and white, which I could hardly do otherwise. In any case the result is not the same and we do not make the picture in the same way.
What is it that you love about film?
The mystery when we take the photo. We don’t see it on the spot, we do not expect to. We discover it a week, ten days, a month after developing the film. By then we’ve forgotten. For me, the most important aspect, what motivated these pictures, are emotions. My camera is small, discreet, and fast enough, so it poses the least possible hindrance. I am also a draftsman and engraver, there is a relation to the subject I love, a connection to paper, to chemistry, to light. In the lab, I have something in hand, something I don’t get from a computer or a printed paper. I miss a lot if I don’t have this medium. Drawing and photography are two extremely close mediums and I have never confronted the two in space, I don’t really want to, maybe one day.
We often find traces of overlays on your photos, a fingerprint, or slags...
Many are taken behind a window with smoke. There’s the idea of an accident which I really like. There is a memory of the accident that appeals to me. I do not want them to speak of a place, a moment. I want the pictures to tell their own story.
All photographs : ©Damien Daufresne. Courtesy Galerie Guigon, Paris.
Galerie Guigon
