This series brings together images taken in Paris, where I reside. I got used for some time past, never go out without my camera. So, this is a kind of photographic notebook. Gradually, month after month, new photos will complete.
Q&A with Thierry Clech
Photography is…
Melancholy (but not nostalgia, I’m not nostalgic).
Melancholy is perhaps the essence of photography : the love of the present which constantly disappears before our eyes.
Photography and writing…
This is my life, since I split my time between the two (I’m also a scriptwriter).
Who left the biggest impression on you?
A horse !… with a front leg torn. It was in India, Haridwar, in the north. The animal did not move. The blood continued to flow. Yet he was stoic. It was a really strange vision, as a nightmare. And as I did not take a picture of the scene, I sometimes wonder (as often in India) if I did not dream…
Besides, more generally, when making photos, the eye in the viewfinder, we often wonder if we do not dream…
Tell us a little about yourself
I always have trouble saying I’m a photographer. Because that sounds like a profession, with all that it implies. And photography is certainly not a profession for me (even though – it’s probably a paradox – I do this very professionally).
I do keep all my liberty, without giving room to constraints, other than those I choose myself. For example, I shoot exclusively in black & white, and I still use films (I can not imagine take pictures with a digital camera). A few years ago, I accepted a commissioned work for a small book. I enjoyed doing it, but the condition, of course, was that I could take the pictures I wanted with my tools, and in the way I wanted.
Actually, I feel more like an « amateur ». I love this word in the French language, but in its prior sense, which means someone who loves something. And I love photography too much to make it a profession, thing which would require me to make concessions, to abide by requests, to adopt a style that is not necessarily mine, and to finally turn all these into bad habits…
