Road to Glencoe Route De Glencoe October 2014

Thousands of people probably stop here each year to take this view…..Edited this today. Printed on A2 .

Early days for a site dedicated to showcasing my work

First to all of you who drop by, just to say a big thank you for your interest :it means a lot to me.

Blogging is helping me  clarify my thoughts about my own work whilst allowing me to discover other photographers , writers, poets , thinkers, painters, activists and more.

I have started creating a site for showcasing only. The site is in its very early stages as I am getting my head around the pros and cons of the template I’m using. Not much to see yet but it is close enough to the feel I am after: simple, “dépouillié” as we say in French, which I find suits most of my work. Three categories for now . It opens on the Paris slideshow. There’s a permanent link to it underneath the title of this blog site.

Wishing you every success in your endeavours.

Kind Regards

Christophe

        Click on the screen shot or the name to get a preview of chevaugeonphoto.com . 

 

Dear Belinda of BeeCEE

Dear Belinda,

I can’t express how your sensitive and profoundly respectful work touches me:where I often focus my gaze on the fleeting moments of life, you’d rather invite us to share in the hopes and difficulties of others that you manage to capture earnestly and yet very creatively without ever falling into sentimentality or trophy hunting . Thank you so much. Please take care.

For those who are not familiar with Belinda’s work, please consider visiting BeeCee

 

John Wredford Photographer Freelance editorial photographer that has spent the last ten years living in the Syrian capital Damascus. Currently in Istanbul Turkey.

In one of my previous posts I joked about not being Jacques-Henri Lartigue ,famous French photographer who lead a life of great leisure . He grew up at the same time that photography was growing up. As far as I know, money never was a problem for him .Looking at his wonderful portfolio he appears to have spent his life like very rich people do, travelling , enjoying the sites, sitting in the first rows of major sporting events and shows and so forth. In my post I was complaining about having to go out and make a living to be able to afford taking pictures after having stayed up most of the night to prepare some prints for a client.

How stupid  to say such a thing ! Compared to many of  my human brothers and sisters, I am, and many of us photographers are, all Jacques Henri Lartigues of sorts , going about our lives in the relative wealth ,peace and security that we enjoy in our respective countries, indulging in photography as a leisure because we have the time and money to do so.

Just back in the UK, after three weeks travels in my native  France, via Holland and Belgium, where I enjoyed life very much like Jacques-Henri did, just on a much smaller budget and took photos, just like he would have, of a world out mostly to enjoy itself, I couldn’t bring myself to post one of my little Lartigue’ moments…

Thankfully ,there are photographers who do something very different with photography, who are not content to be the Jacques-Henri Lartigues of their own little safe worlds and John Wredford is one of them.  He describes himself as “a photographer on the loose about the Middle East” .

In a time where many of us need to break away from superficial views about the Middle East in general and Syria in particular, his blog is vital …

Please visit, follow and share….

http://johnwreford.wordpress.com/

About Walter Plotnick / Re-Imagining the World of Tomorrow / other Works

I was drowning in a sea of banal images when I stumbled upon Walter Plotnick’s work  ” Re-Imagining the World of Tomorrow ” .

If you browse  http://www.walterplotnick.com/ , his creations, although produced using a very modern hybrid digital-analogue workflow, are by their very content and design strongly rooted in our past. A superficial glance might even lead you to believe that you are looking at reproductions of works of old but no, you are looking at  modern re-compositions of works of old and at remarkable original photograms and  wire creations along with a selection of his contemporary commercial photography .

What comes to my academically untrained mind when I look at some of his work ?

Elegance, joy, multiple exposure, humanity, hope, balance, Moholy Nagy , Man Ray, moving pictures, Metropolis,  fondu-enchaîné or cross fading, delight, arabesques, a desire to dance, nostalgia, memories of visiting  the Expo 67 in Canada, America, the smell of hypo, politics, cold war, science, future, beauty, creativity,daring feats, skill , celebration, daily life .

I was once a little boy awestruck by  science and its promises. I understand now that it is philosophy, not science that will determine humanity’s future;  that we urgently need to make progress in our values  and develop and use technologies wisely if we are to have any future at all.

Walter Plotnik’s work,  brings me much joy and food for thought ; I hope you enjoy it too.

I don’t really know Walter Plotnik, and he hasn’t put me up to this, but I do know he his hoping to get an exhibition up and running in Belgium this summer. Like most projects this one needs financial support:you could have a wander at http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1417697998/re-imagining-the-world-of-tomorrow-euro-exhibit-bo and consider backing the project. You’ll have the pleasure of meeting Walter through a video. I love the idea that people from all walks of life can support a project like Walter’s, in my ideal future world most of our time will be used in creative pursuits…So thanks Walter for giving me the chance to have a little taste of my ideal future today!

Dear Gigibutton

Looking at your work-that is not for all eyes and wouldn’t be shown in all parts of today’s world-I see love, friendship, sisterhood , freedom, wildness, tenderness, a love for the good things in life ( like lovemaking ,sunshine and fashion), a taste for the eccentric, a dose of provocation, an opposition of women and men , a refusal to submit to norms and a celebration of femininity.

I’ve never been attracted to nudes, a respectable genre but just not my thing; and as  for  self-obsessed  self-portraits -sadly trendy- that some might find interesting, I just can’t bear them.

Normally your work that combines self portraiture and nakedness, even using your  refreshingly understated approach to composition , lighting and colour, would be my idea of contemporary photographic hell ! So why do I feel in some kind of photographic heaven when I browse through your photographs ?

You do portray yourself and people that matter to you, often in poses that reveal more than many men and women are probably comfortable with, but I feel included and invited to reflect on my own humanity and better still, invited to join in and enjoy what there is to enjoy.

At a glance your photographs could be just about you, your sisterhood and your men ( your son and that smartly dressed guy jumping ) but I strongly feel your photographs are about us-all of us.

I can only encourage people who love photography to look at your work : http://gigibuttons.wordpress.com

I wish you all the very best.

Christophe