26/09/2011

Jordan Mintzer is an American cinema critic and producer. He lives in Paris with my friend Sophie and their son Dimitri. We had a drink this afternoon and talked about cinema, of course (Paris)


SEDUCE ME 1 / DACHA



Dacha Appolonova is an extremely sensitive woman. I like her humour and typically Russian sense of drama. She told me that, due to her love for Russian litterature, she sometimes feels like living in the nineteenth century (Paris)

More info about the SEDUCE ME video project in the 19/09/2011 post

20/09/2011

ERASED

ERASED ON 01/08/2015

19/09/2011

I had tea, early this morning, with Christophe Brunnquell (the mythical old school Purple magazine art director) at his studio. He's an amazing painter with a great sense of mise-en-scene and self-derision (Paris)


SEDUCE ME VIDEO PROJECT

PLEASE SEDUCE ME !

Portraiture is a matter of relationship, and mostly of seduction. 
The issue is for the models to find out an attractive attitude that they will offer to the artist's eyes, and therefore, those of the audience - with the more or less skilled and protective assistance of the portrait maker.

The SEDUCE ME project was born out of this acknoledgement. 

It consists in asking people of my selection to perform intentionally this peculiar game of seduction in front of my video camera, during a couple of minutes.
In other words, they will have to try to seduce me. 
Of each session I will only save a 1 to 2 minutes silent short film.
 

SEDUCE ME 1, the first video of this project, will be posted on Portrait Lab on September 26th. It will initiate a cycle of ideas and concepts centered around the theme of portrait.

I hope you’ll enjoy it.

Translated from French by Adélaïde Gomes

04/09/2011

ERASED

ERASED ON 08/12/2011

 “A portrait is not a likeness. The moment an emotion or fact is transformed into a photograph it is no longer a fact but an opinion. There is no such thing as inaccuracy in a photograph. All photographs are accurate. None of them is the truth. ”
Richard Avedon

 A portrait was posted here for three months. The lady who has performed as the model asked me to erase it.
Whatever is her reason, I respect it and erased my picture immediately.
I have been disappointed at first, but then I decided to look backwards at this experience positively. As a matter of fact, it is an actual expression of what is and what is not portrait.
Therefore I grab the occasion to clarify some points.
A lot of people do mix portraiture with flattery. To be looking for an attractive mirror on a self portrait is understandable. But, a portrait does not necessarily take as a priority to render beautiful the idea that a model makes of themselves. Instead, the portraitist has to translate into his own language the inner conception that he has of a special person in a specific moment.
This is the spirit of the most admirable photographers, and, of course, mine in this blog too. I see no reason why those who do not share it should be represented in here.
Translated from French by Adélaïde Gomes