I am using here the photogram process, favoured by the Surrealists, consisting in taking photographs without a camera possible.
The method used requires placing within a confined arena several objects - such as plastic and card packaging - in contact with a photosensitive surface. The enclosed space is provided with a few holes which can let a flash of light in, thereby exposing the photosensitive surface.
The black and white photographs thus obtained show distorted shadows of the objects, but not just. Three-dimensional spaces comprising volumes and reliefs are also revealed. The resulting images of these objets sometimes take on a poetic dimension; indeed some of the shapes obtained are so abstract that they are open to new interpretations.
In the set up phase, the objects are placed on the photosensitive surface with consideration yet imprecision, while the light sources are carefully controlled. The photographs thus created are therefore partly fortuitous.
In the second phase, the photosensitive paper is printed and digitalised. The "photoscopy" making can then start.
Observing these black and white photographs is disconcerting. The orientation of the images remains to be determined, their composition to be reinvented. In some cases several appraisals are possible.
I then proceed with the virtual cropping of the image and define the scores whose narrative potential I exploit by combining colour and black and white, mixing the negative and positive versions of the same image. These dualities come into play, feed off each other and enhance one another, finally converging into a single photograph.
My approach is at once methodical, rational, and spontaneous, intuitive in order to generate an emotional response to the image produced. Each image is open to different interpretations, some of which may conjure reality, move us or question us.
