Pinholes

Suspended moments
It is not so much nostalgia than a quest for simplicity which led me to pinhole photography. I used a shoebox or the cardboard case of a whisky bottle to create my rudimentary cameras by piercing a microscopic pinhole in order to let light make its way and sneak in. The negatives are then scanned and tinted digitally.

Pinhole photography is above all an art of patience. The exposure times vary between 30 seconds and 2 hours. We are a long way from the decisive moment and the 500th of a second before which the moment is not there and after which it is gone. And yet, these moments are just as many fragments, some of which highly significant, of a life.  Suspended moments. Most of these photographs have recorded the passage of at least one person. Some can be perceived, almost recognized. Others passed by, passed again, remained there for a while, but would not let the small aperture seize them. What remains are the minute, the hour or two that have counted so much though they were not timed.

Of an empirical nature, there are no learned calculations in the way my image boxes are manufactured. Although I know how they will behave with light, I greatly enjoy the way they surprise me by revealing what I could not predict. I love it when they confirm, in the solitude of the darkroom that this moment was worth remembering.

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