Photo : Francis Annet . Tous Droits Reservés. Copyright : Francis Annet
During ‘Le 3eme Festival Flore Faune’ I exhibited alongsides Francis Annet, a photographer whose work I greatly enjoy. I feel his photos or ‘cliches’ as they are sometimes called in french, go beyond the ‘happy snaps’ (or ‘cliches’ as they are known in english) of ‘THE VIEW’ but rather contain a strong personal vision of Perigord. He’s spent a long time looking, selecting & composing with his camera. ‘En plein air’ on the spot alot of the time, I would imagaine. It’s always something of a pleasurable shock for me to recognise in the works of another artist, something of same landscape which I also paint & have grown to love. To discover the landscape through paintings or photographs…. a journey that requires that you always dig deeper….. this is why I could never been an non-figurative artist. Having said that, Francis has a very strong sense of the abstract in his compositions.
His photos are wonderfully printed up, about 30 x 40 cm & mounted on metal. They have wonderful precise defintion, being all digital rather than silver halide. Good ‘bokeh’ as well (deliberate use of unfocus blur). He has also published a fabulous book about trees as well as another about landscapes of the Dordogne. You can see more of his work at http://www.perigord.com/francis.annet/
He photographs the colours of light so well, often how the light plays with humidity in the air (which is otherwise invisible, only visible in certain lighting). I’ve often been driven to complete despair & utter defeat whilst trying to paint this. Whilst talking to Francis, something he said stuck in my mind, about light not being captured’ but rather light in a photograph ‘se merite’ (literally ‘deserves itself’, in the sense that it comes to you, something you learn to see). What makes a good photograph doesn’t necessarily make a good painting. But what is true to both painting & photography is that beautiful subject matter doesn’t necessarily make a beautiful painting/photograph (just look at all the dreadful & banal postcards!). That’s in the eye of the artist.
Photo : Francis Annet . Tous Droits Reservés. Copyright : Francis Annet
«Je suis resté trés intuitif» dit-il quand il parle de son travail. «c¹est souvent avec les thèmes les plus simples que je réussi mes meilleurs clichés. Dans un paysage, j¹aime tout particulièrement rechercher les lignes d¹équilibre, recadrer sur un sujet plus petit mais plus fort graphiquement, recréer une image à l¹intérieur d¹une autre et mettre ainsi en valeur un morceau choisi de la nature qui ne se révèle pas au premier regard. La lumière, certainement le facteur le plus important pour réussir une bonne photo, révèle le sujet, lui donne vie, relief, volume, elle réhausse les couleurs, souligne les courbes, crée des transparences, elle est mon premier instrument de photographie. J¹aime aussi l¹abstraction et partir du concret pour réaliser une photo qui nous entraîne loin du point de départ, qui stimule l¹imagination. C¹est en cela que ma démarche peut se rapprocher de celle d¹un peintre et que certaines de mes créations ressemblent à des tableaux.» Francis Annet
