Shanghai in winter is a very different city. Everything changes, the market stands are covered by smoked fishes, when it’s not raining, clothes are drying, hanged on the trees of the former french district. Foreigner tourists are far away…
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.
A la verticale de l’ouest
2004, China meets again the west in the business lounges of Shanghai or Paris. My last film rolls are covered by pictures of contrasts with a taste of modern ying-yang, mobile phones used by cyclos, modern building floating on a sea of old style food stands. By this exhibition, i want to tell the story of another meeting, where the central Asia meets the Far East, at the exact place where, in the past, the fuzzy Chinese western border was disapearing in the taklamakan desert sand dunes. All these pictures (except one) have been taken in the Xinjiang province,…