BOP name originated in French, it could be translated as: “wave and particle craft“. The founders are a bit geeky so the name is of course related to the dual definition of light as a photon beam or as an electromagnetic wave, this being a photography association. It is (sadly, or not) not referring to blond babes in bikinis on surfboards.
BOP is an association with a goal of promoting different aspects of film photography. This means that only film has been used to produce the pictures you will see in these pages. We won’t get into the (often heated but mostly sterile) debate on whether film is better or worse than digital. We just don’t do digital, or at least not within the BOP framework. This is a bit biased in the sense that of course we scan our negatives, slides or prints to be able to show them here. But the shooting and the approach is totally analogue.
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Indeed, BOP promotes a certain “old school” approach of photography in relation to the punk mantra DIY “Do It Yourself”. We are (almost all) self-taught photographers. And we like the slowness of the film photography: when one shoots, goes home, unloads one’s camera, waits until it is dark, goes to one’s black-tapped bathroom to develop the negatives, gets out of the bathroom with one’s head spinning from the fumes of the chemicals, waits until the negatives are dry and then, only then, discovers the harvest of the past days… Whatever happens next (and before) depends on the work flow of each photographer of course. Some will scan everything and use it as a contact sheet to decide what to print in a dark room, and then get more high on some different chemical for a full night. Some will satisfy themselves with scans…
On this website, BOP offers each of its members virtual space for their on-line portfolio. This space is very limited and it is hard to get a BOP exhibition. There are many criteria amongst which coherency is the most important in the BOP philosophy. But it doesn’t mean that BOP members don’t have other plans, and you’ll find most of the time a personal website in their short biography. Each exhibition in the BOP website has its own theme and coherency.
We also aim at organizing collective paper exhibitions and publish printed media such as booklets or a magazine for instance. We do believe in the power of holding a real artefact in your hands. If you are interested by some of the pictures you see, do not hesitate to contact us, most of us will be happy to sell you a print. The quite low resolution of the pictures will not allow you to print it yourself, nor to use it as a wallpaper: each of the picture is copyrighted by its author. We are sure you understand that, don’t you?
We hope that you will have a good time browsing through BOP pictures. If you are willing to contact us with feedback we would love to read it!