International Dark Sky Places
4x5 Fuji Provia sheet film, lightbox with plexiglass cover, 50x60cm
or blue-back paper, variable dimensions
2021-24
Photographs of places designated by the Dark Sky Association because of their low light pollution. These are often isolated islands or remote natural parks far from major urban centres.
Each photograph is taken during the day, then developed exactly in the same location once night falls, without a tent or changing bag, but taking advantage of the unique darkness of the night to turn the world into a darkroom.
Where Photographs Come to Life
platinum-palladium print, Photogravure, each 28x35cm
Fresson print, baryta print, Cibachrome print, chromogenic print, pigment inkjet print, each 40x50cm
2021
Seven photographs, each showcasing the workshop where its print was made. Atelier Filippo, Atelier Fresson, Atelier Heliog, Atelier Publimod, Cadre-en-Seine Labo, Diamantino Labo Photo and Processus have respectively made a platinum-palladium print, a Fresson print, a Photogravure, a baryta print, a Cibachrome print, a chromogenic print and a pigment inkjet print.
Produced as part of the french national photographic commission Regards du Grand Paris.
Photographs of Foreign Algae
direct black and white positive paper, each 8x10"
2021-22
Landscapes of seaweed harvesting, where each photograph was processed using a developer made from seaweed collected or purchased at the shooting locations. The natural polyphenols present in the seaweed enable the creation of a developer following the principle of Caffenol — an alternative photo development process based on coffee, formulated in 1995 at the University of Rochester.
The photographs are unique images taken with an 8x10 large format camera on direct black and white positive paper.
They were taken in France (in Ouessant and along the north coast of Finistère from Lanildut to Roscoff) and in Japan (in Hokkaido, Niigata, on Sado Island, in Tokyo Bay, and in Okinawa) in places where seaweed is harvested wild or cultivated. Here, black seaweed, wakame, sea spaghetti, dulse, kombu, laminaria digitata, nori, sea lettuce, and umibudo have been both subjects and developers.
Produced with the support of Mondes Nouveaux, a program dof the French ministry of culture.
Coffee Makers
direct black and white positive paper, each 4x5"
2019
Photographs of coffee makers developed with their own coffee following the process of Caffenol — an alternative photographic process formulated in 1995 at Rochester Institute of Technology where coffee is used as a film developer.
The photographs are taken with a 4x5 camera using a black and white direct positive paper.
The Idea of Photography
Fresson print, 40x50 cm
2019
Although Nicéphore Niépce took a photograph for the first time in 1824 at Saint-Loup-de-Varenne near Chalon-sur-Saône, a letter he wrote to his brother Claude on 16 September 1824 reveals that the idea first occurred to him in 1797 in Cagliari.
The Idea of Photography (2019) shows a panoramic view of Cagliari at night. It was taken two hundred and twenty-two years after Nicéphore Niépce’s journey to Sardinia.
The Idea of Photography
Fresson print, 40x50 cm
2023
Although Henry Fox Talbot took a photograph for the first time in 1835 at Lacock Abbey in Wiltshire, England, the introduction he wrote for his book «The Pencil of Nature,» published from 1844 onwards reveals that the idea for this invention first occurred to him in 1833 by Lake Como.
The Idea of Photography (2023) is a view of Lake Como from Villa Melzi, captured one hundred eighty-nine years after Henry Fox Talbot’s journey to Italy.
Our Shadows, Émulsion, Boulevard de Charonne, Paris
in collaboration with Mana Kikuta
Daguerréotype, 13x18 cm
2023
A daguerreotype made on copper plated with silver recovered from the development baths of the Emulsion laboratory. It depicts the facade of the laboratory.
Exhibition view. Où naissent les photographies, L'Imagerie (2023)
During the development process of a film or a sheet of photo paper, all the silver halides that have not been touched by light are dissolved to allow the unexposed silver halides to form an image. As a result, each film or sheet loses on average half of the silver it contained. This silver, whose absence delineates the shadows in the developed photographs, remains suspended in the fixing bath.
View from Saint-Énogat Cave
4x5 Fuji Provia sheet film, lightbox with plexiglass cover, 50x60cm
or blue-back paper, variable dimensions
2020
A photograph taken from the entrance to Saint-Énogat Cave near Dinard and then developed inside the cave, in a place that was sufficiently dark so that daylight would not interfere with the photographic process.
A photographic laboratory was set up in 1877 in this very cave by the Lumière brothers, Auguste and Louis, while they were still teenagers. As the story goes, they became trapped one day when the oncoming sea filled the cave after they had lost track of time. It is at this moment that they promised each other they would work together forever should they manage to get out alive. Subsequently, the first ready-to-use dry photographic plates were marketed under both of their names in 1881. So was Autochrome, an early colour photography process, in 1893.
View by Fuchuo River
4x5 Fuji Provia sheet film, lightbox with plexiglass cover, 50x60cm
or blue-back paper, variable dimensions
2022
A photograph taken by the river that runs through the village of Nukushina, near Hiroshima, and developed in the same location during a moonless night.
It was here that Yoshito Matsushige developed the only known photographs of the day of the US bombing of Hiroshima in 1945. Yoshito Matsushige was a photographer for the Chugoku Shimbun, a newspaper in western Japan. At home during the explosion, he was not seriously injured and decided to walk to the newspaper office with a camera and 2 rolls of 24-exposure film. However, the city centre was completely destroyed, and his route was quickly blocked. He only took 6 photos with his camera, leaving 18 frames and an entire roll empty. He later expressed his difficulty in taking each of these images, torn between the shame of photographing people so severely affected and the desire to bear witness to what was happening. Since everything was destroyed, he had to wait for a moonless night, nearly 20 days later, to develop his film outdoors. He worked in the dark by the river near a farmhouse where Chugoku Shimbun employees had set up makeshift offices. He dried his film on a branch of a tree that lined the river.