Photo © Alexandre CHAMELAT
Culture - NOMINEE: Alexandre CHAMELAT
The Zaïd Garden
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Autunm 2015, my trip to Morocco was nourished by a desire to experience the nature: learn the agriculture, be absorbed by the landscapes ...
I was warmly welcommed by the Bennabbou family in Tagounite (gateway to the Sahara) and Mohamed in Agafay (outskirt of Marrakech).
I also spent several weeks exploring the country by bus or by car, from Essaouira to Sidi Ifni and from Marrakech to M'Hamid.
Live there every day taught me something that now appears to me as essential. Take time. Taking time to listen, speak, look, smell, feel, play and live. I feel a real need and photographic desire to dwell on all these moments which surround me and feed me : a burst of light, a color point, a shadow, a movement, a line, a curve, a diagonal...
The desire to seize everything : the tiny becomes essential, the nothingness becomes universal, but how to translate these passages? The beauty seems to be everywhere, a concept which it is pleasant to linger, even if it often escapes us !
I bring great attention to the shape of the image: frame, colors, textures, gradients, contrasts. But how to report this beauty face to a daily reality?
Of course the concept of beauty exists only through an aesthetic ideal, and we do not have all the same ideals, but it is not the notion of truth as beautiful or as a goal that interests me but all the questions and the reflections on this concept.
About author:
Alexandre Chamelat was born in France in 1990, grew up in Toulouse and lives in Bordeaux. Graduated from the School of Photography and Game Design (ETPA), his artistic approach is built on land’s discovery, in close relationship with Human and Earth.
Adept of Wwoofing, he has accumulated several experiences in Morocco, Iceland and the Alps. He opens up to philosophy through authors such as Edgar Morin, Michel Onfray and Pierre Rabhi.
His photographic practice is meant to be aesthetic and documentary, he seeks serenity and fullness in each of his photographs.
I was warmly welcommed by the Bennabbou family in Tagounite (gateway to the Sahara) and Mohamed in Agafay (outskirt of Marrakech).
I also spent several weeks exploring the country by bus or by car, from Essaouira to Sidi Ifni and from Marrakech to M'Hamid.
Live there every day taught me something that now appears to me as essential. Take time. Taking time to listen, speak, look, smell, feel, play and live. I feel a real need and photographic desire to dwell on all these moments which surround me and feed me : a burst of light, a color point, a shadow, a movement, a line, a curve, a diagonal...
The desire to seize everything : the tiny becomes essential, the nothingness becomes universal, but how to translate these passages? The beauty seems to be everywhere, a concept which it is pleasant to linger, even if it often escapes us !
I bring great attention to the shape of the image: frame, colors, textures, gradients, contrasts. But how to report this beauty face to a daily reality?
Of course the concept of beauty exists only through an aesthetic ideal, and we do not have all the same ideals, but it is not the notion of truth as beautiful or as a goal that interests me but all the questions and the reflections on this concept.
About author:
Alexandre Chamelat was born in France in 1990, grew up in Toulouse and lives in Bordeaux. Graduated from the School of Photography and Game Design (ETPA), his artistic approach is built on land’s discovery, in close relationship with Human and Earth.
Adept of Wwoofing, he has accumulated several experiences in Morocco, Iceland and the Alps. He opens up to philosophy through authors such as Edgar Morin, Michel Onfray and Pierre Rabhi.
His photographic practice is meant to be aesthetic and documentary, he seeks serenity and fullness in each of his photographs.