International Dark Sky Places
Photographs of isolated islands or remote natural parks, designated by the Dark Sky Association because of their low light pollution.
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.
Selection. From left to right and top to bottom :
South Downs National Park (England), Millevaches Regional Natural Park (France), Eifel National Park (Germany), Iriomote-Ishigaki National Park (Japan), Bisei Village (Japan), Kozushima Island (Japan)
Selection. South Downs National Park (England)
Where Photographs Come to Life
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.
Selection. From left to right and top to bottom : Atelier Publimod, rue de Sévigné, Paris, baryta print ; Cadre en Seine Labo, rue Bisson, Paris, Cibachrome print ; Processus, rue de la Roquette, Paris, pigment inkjet print ; Diamantino Labo Photo, rue Jules-Ferry, Bagnolet, chromogenic print ; Atelier Héliog, rue Porto-Riche, Meudon, photogravure ; Atelier Filippo, rue de Rochechouart, Paris, platinum-palladium print
Selection. Atelier Fresson, rue de la Montagne-Pavée, Savigny-sur-Orge, Fresson print
Photographs of Foreign Algae
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.
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, kelp, wakame, sea spaghetti, dulse, kombu, laminaria digitata, nori, sea lettuce, and umibudo have been both subjects and developers.
The photographs are unique images taken with an 8×10 large format camera on direct black and white positive paper.
Produced with the support of Mondes Nouveaux, a program of the French ministry of culture.
Selection. From left to right and top to bottom :
Knotted kelp, Ascophyllum nodosum, in front of Île Vierge ;
Knotted kelp, Ascophyllum nodosum, on a rock at low tide ;
Sea spaghetti, Himanthalia Elongata, in the creek of Pors Goret in Lampaul-Plouarzel ;
Sea spaghetti, Himanthalia Elongata, in the creek of Pors Goret in Lampaul-Plouarzel ;
Round boats for harvesting wakame, Undaria pinnatifida, on Sado Island ;
Kombu, Saccharina angustata, drying on a shingle beach at Erimo-misaki ;
Kombu, Saccharina latissima, on the foreshore at Plouguerneau ;
Kombu, Saccharina latissima, on the foreshore at Lampaul-Ploudalmézeau ;
Nori, Porphyra yezoensis, grown in Tokyo Bay, near Kisarazu
Selection. Wakame, Undaria pinnatifida, farmed in the Iroise Sea near Ouessant
Selection. Wakame, Undaria pinnatifida, freshly harvested at the Port of Niigata
Coffee Makers
Photographs of coffee makers, each developed using the coffee they’ve just brewed, following the Caffenol process — an alternative photo development process based on coffee, formulated in 1995 at the University of Rochester.
The photographs are unique images taken with an 4×5 large format camera on direct black and white positive paper.
Selection. From left to right and top to bottom : Aeropress, Melitta, Jeneba, Bialetti Moka Express, Hario Slow Drip, Cona new model D, Bodum French Press, Nescafé, Cezve, Handpresso, V60, Hario Cloth Drip, Flair, Filtre jetable, Ilsa Napoletana, Boss Black, Nespresso Magimix, Phin
Exhibition view. Jeune Création, Fondation Fiminco (2021)
5. The Idea of Photography
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
A daguerreotype made on copper plated with silver recovered from the development baths of the Emulsion laboratory. It depicts the facade of the laboratory.
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
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
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.
