(Click on the image to get the free PDF file – travelogue edition)
Author: Barthélémy Longueville
Taking pictures, that's traveling around the world, carrying a notebook and a bunch of film rolls. That's the feeling of the old metal skin of my cameras. That's waiting for a picture to be revealed in the darkroom, remembering the sound of the shutter and bringing back all the universe when the picture was taken, faces, clouds, pieces of sky, unknown objects...
I shot my first 10 rolls of film in China, last century. Probably there is the root of my path with photography. I cannot say this is the origin of all my inspiration but for sure these first films had a huge foot print. Since that time, I like walking anywhere with a camera, opening my eyes, driven by the environment. Sometimes it is even simply for the pleasure to discover, taking picture is an attempt to preserve a specific stream of feelings. That special instant when the shutter is released and the image start its life in my memory is often more important than the result itself. The photographs I like are carrying an atmosphere, a whole small world.
I am proud to be part of BOP. Not only because our fellow members share a passion for analog cameras but because we like to spend the necessary time for things to be done and seen. We are not really working in the instant, we simply like to take our time and slowly prepare our exhibitions, from the first idea, the shooting, the processing, to the selection and exchanges with the other members.
three hours and thirty five minutes [ Night Shanghai – 夜上海 ]
A journey in the night of Shanghai Out from Huahai road metro station in Shanghai center, I walked toward south-east. It was 7:30pm and I had already entered the old Shanghai maze, Nanshi district. At this time of the day, a special life is raising, it’s a transition between the end of the sunlight and the deep night, the restaurants serve their last customers, people are doing their last shopping, face are tired after a long day. On the other hand, night shops start their business and hair salon never stop. With the night, I disappeared in the shadows,…
Backportraits
I’ve been travelling in China more or less for ten years now and to celebrate this anniversary, nothing could be better than a new BOP exhibition.
My two previous exhibitions in BOP deal with two different topics but they express my feelings as a foreigner in this country.
They reflect my surprises, my view, and my thoughts. To end this first decade of Chinese experience, I wanted to give another insight on this country. Would it be possible to show China as the Chinese actually see their country? As a foreigner, when I take portraits or landscape views, most of the time, the framing, timing, focus, and subject are mine; they are the result of my own agenda.