It’s been a while since I wrote my last post and a lot has happened since. I launched Carte Blanche website and opened Carte Blanche gallery & bookstore in San Francisco. I’ve been so busy with these exciting projects that I didn’t get (or take) the time to concentrate on writing. But since I started this adventure, and searching, looking around, discovery, questions and answers I find through photography have became part of my life.
So once again after excitement and the stress of the launch, I turned to photography to find a moment of quiet and peace. And as I was wandering through photographic projects and experiences I found what I was looking for. A silence, a pause, a time to think and resource myself.
Lauren Henkin
For Lauren Henkin, silence is an orchard but it’s actually while I was looking through her series of cards (deck of chords) that I started to realize the relaxing power of photography. By flipping through Deck of chords, you find the peace of looking through train windows. The images of her series The lines between us ravel in front of your eyes or inside your head until you reach this strange state of mind between being awake and asleep, between reality and memories. The speed of the train, the souvenirs of the place you’re leaving and the thoughts of the place you’re trying to reach, all images are blurred, the landscapes escape the reality and take intangible soft colors. The images follow each other until they become part of your dream… Project after project and series after series, Lauren Henkin’s beautiful photography brings serenity to our lives.
 |
| © Kirsten Rian and Lauren Henkin, Deck of chords |
 |
| © Kirsten Rian and Lauren Henkin, Deck of chords |
 |
| © Lauren Henkin, Silence is an orchard |
 |
| © Lauren Henkin, Still standing, standing still |
 |
| © Lauren Henkin, Displaced: part II |
Loic Thisse
Loic Thisse finds his inspiration in the forests and the swamps around Toulouse in France. He takes us on a quiet walk through empty silent places and leaves us there. He loses us in the middle of it right when we can only hear the wind in the leaves and when the vegetation takes over on the sky and the light. His peaceful images enter our minds like a song and our souls like a prayer coming from above, dictated by Mother Nature herself. Loic Thisse finds beauty in dark swamps and peace in dark forests and makes us walk on a thin line between reassuring and scary, between dream and reality.
 |
| ©Loic Thisse |
 |
| ©Loic Thisse |
 |
| ©Loic Thisse |
 |
| ©Loic Thisse |
 |
| ©Loic Thisse |
Stéphane Martinelli, The vegetal project
Stephane Martinelli is a French photographer who mixes photography, ecology and science. In his project statement Stephane Martinelli asserts an inventory of the vegetal world and wants to provide photographs to document and help scientists or institutions to illustrate their work. But for me the vegetal project seems to be more than that, it’s an invitation to meditate and an initiation into the vegetal world. It’s a series of images that sublimate nature. In every image there is a world to be discovered, a world of elegance and aesthetic, a world of plenitude. The plenitude of silence.
 |
| © Stéphane Martinelli |
 |
| © Stéphane Martinelli |
 |
| © Stéphane Martinelli |
 |
| © Stéphane Martinelli |
 |
| © Stéphane Martinelli |
More about the vegetal project: thevegetalproject.com
Wow, thank you so much, Gwen. I'm humbled and honored by these words.
ReplyDeleteI hope you find as much silence as you desire in 2012.
Lauren