Love is in the air.

Love is good marketing.

Love is trendy.

Some call their product "thelovemagazine"

Some call a perfume "tresor in love"

Some call a video selling clothes "LØV"

Some call themselves "we are love"

Love is obviously a good concept.

All wrong. Love is something else.

Can't be seen, can be shown, should be carefully protected.

Love is timeless.

Love is invisible.

Love is not a matter of time. Since it's out of time.

Love is not a key-factor of success.

Love is the key.

Can you please stop calling "love" anything but love ?

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Glimmering of a thought.

Like a first morning. Glimmering rose. Annabel Lee.

Annabel Lee

It was many and many a year ago
In a kingdom by the sea
That a maiden there lived, whom you may know
By the name of Annabel Lee
And this maiden she lived with no other thought
Than to love and be loved by me.
I was a child and she was a child
In this kingdom by the sea
But we loved with a love that was more than love
I and my Annabel Lee
With a love that winged seraphs in Heaven
Coveted her and me

This was the reason that, long ago
In this kingdom by the sea
The winds blew out of a cloud, chilling
My beautiful Annabel Lee
So that her highborn kinsmen came
And bore her away from me,
To shut her up in a sepulchre
In this kingdom by the sea

The Angels, not half so happy in Heaven,
Went envying her and me
Yes! That was the reason (as all men know
In this kingdom by the sea)
That the wind came out of a cloud by night
Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee.

But our love, it was stronger by far than the love
Of those who were older than we,
Of many far wiser than we
And neither the Angels in Heaven above
Nor the demons down under the sea
Can ever dissever my soul from the soul
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee.

For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee
And the stars never rise, but I feel the bright eyes
Of my beautiful Annabel Lee.
And so, all the nighttide, I lie down by the side
Of my darling! My darling, my life and my bride.
In her sepulchre, there by the sea,
In her tomb, by the side of the sea.

--Edgar Allan Poe

& very few things are as thrilling as the first instant in a photo studio. Usually early morning. When everything had be prepared, days or weeks in advance, when you know that almost everything will go right, and a few things will go wrong, as usual. When everything is quietly waiting for you : lights, cables, cameras, props, everything. When everybody is waiting for you. A team. Counting on you. Everything has to be done. The possibilities are endless, almost. You're full of hope. And you're full of fear too. And you love it. That very special feeling.
The meetings have been done, the shooting has been prepared, the bookings have been made, the brains have been storming. And here you are, stepping into a studio photo, when everything is quiet, when everything has to fall into place, when everybody is going to give energy for a very simple thing : a few images.

I love this moment in the early morning. The first steps. The first coffee. Wandering around. Checking the place, the equipment, the exits. Looking at the sofa where you will not have time to sit, looking at the photographic equipment, especially the lights. Like old friends. Here we go again, locked inside a studio for long hours, doing our best to celebrate the final moment, to push away the sadness, to try and be relieved when everything will be done. When it will be time to leave, the images will have been made. Image maker. I love these words. And every time I leave a photo studio, I feel terrible. Making images in a studio is like living a love story in a single day. The beginning, the climax, and the end. Exhausting. And exhilarating.

When you step into the photo studio, you still have the illusion that everything, any image could be done. And when you leave, it's written. It's done, and you can't undo it. You're not full of hope any more. But you're not full of despair neither. You're nothing. Empty, like the studio at the final time. It's no longer your place, and therefore you have no choice but to leave. The thrill, the sweat, the fear, the joy, the pressure, the fun, the poetry, the flashes, the magic, the sounds, the lights, the shivers, everything is swept away. 

Very few times are as terrible as the final time in a photo studio. And nevertheless, at that very moment, there is only one thought left in your devastated mind : I've been happy here.

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There was Charlie Chaplin.

There is James Thierrée, Mats Ek, & a few others.

And there is Slava. And his Slava Snow Show.

Pure and extatic joy.

They take you so far away in the limbs of existence, you connect immediately. Waking up the child buried inside, and a million other characters that constitute who you are. The problem being that when you go so far away, you need a while to come back. Maybe because you're afraid to come back, or you don't really want to. In my whole life, this is the only show I lived - lived, not experienced - that seemed to have no end. Since nobody wanted to leave. On stage. In the theatre. The final moment lasted and lasted. Everybody enjoying it, watching everybody else enjoying it. An act of communion, maybe. Connections. What were we doing ? Just enjoying the present moment, with a rare density. That's why. I will see Slava & co again next week. See you there, hopefully. That's the best I can wish you.

"Clown is the most spontaneous creature on Earth. When you start restraining his freedom, he loses himself and whimpers like a child. Basically, it means that you offended him deeply."

Slava Polunin, "The monologue of a clown"

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En vie.

Tu auras une image, si tu n'es pas sage.

Installe-toi.

On y va ? ...

Vivid time.

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Je n'avais jamais remarqué.

Les ailes des anges

Deux petites feuilles

Au gré du vent

Les feuilles

Mobiles immobiles.

Effeuiller le temps qui passe

&

Le redessiner :

Invariable géométrie

Mirobolante

Un peu beaucoup passionnément

Petites feuilles froissées

Au hasard

Art

Naturel.

Vous aviez déjà remarqué ?

Recomposer le temps qui passe

Un nuage s'il vous plaît pas du tout

Un frisson d'ailes illuminées.

Compter une à une

Les ailes des arbres

Les feuilles des anges.

Page blanche, à la folie.

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•

...

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Parfois il n'est plus nécessaire de nier le principe de réalité.

Il se dissout de lui-même. Il s'évanouit.

Il s'agit d'instants fugitifs.

Quand plus rien ne demeure inachevé.

Phosporescence pour l'âme et l'esprit.

Le principe de réalité attendra.

Les rêves sont vrais. 

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About the reality principle and its welcomed obsolescence...

Sometimes it's not necessary any more to deny the reality principle.

It dissolves naturally, it vanishes.

It's about fleeting times.

When nothing is left unfinished.

Phosporescence for soul & mind.

The reality principle can wait.

Dreams are true.

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Full joy (true friend & fake Hopper)

Full enchantment (true atmosphere & fake moonlights)

Full moon (true instant and fake reality)

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I'm a gaffer at all times.

The gaffer is a photographer's best friend.

The gaffer can be torn apart with a simple, neat, precise gesture. A decisive, smart tap, and it's done.

But also the gaffer can fix everything, it can resist to all kinds of pressure. 

And finally the gaffer can also be the person in charge of light when making a movie.

That's why.

I'm a gaffer.

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Je ne devais pas y être. Sans un allié providentiel et généreux, je l'aurais encore raté. Peut-être qu'il était temps, peut-être que parfois ça suffit de rater les êtres et les instants. Peut-être qu'il y avait urgence, finalement. Peut-être que l'allié le savait. Comment savoir ? On ne sait jamais vraiment pourquoi parfois le chaos de l'existence devient, l'espace d'un instant, harmonieux. Et pourtant...

Dès les premiers instants j'ai su. Que je n'en reviendrais pas. Que je n'allais pas être touchée, mais transpercée jusqu'au fond de l'âme, à chaque seconde et la suivante, comme si l'âme reconnaissait ce que je n'aurais pas pu espérer, puisque je ne savais pas que ça existait. Bouleversement fluide, ravissement mélancolique, renversement chaloupé, éblouissement à pas feutrés. Pas de choc, puisqu'aucune violence. Cataclysme discret, révélation souterraine. Pour toujours, et toujours.

En conséquence, je suis décousue. Propos décousus. Âme effilochée. James Thiérrée : Funambule sur le fil ténu de la grâce. Un instant, une idée. Une berceuse ininterrompue en terra incognita, une terre familière pourtant, celle des songes qu'on croyait évanouis. James Thiérrée aux commandes, poète manipulateur qui fait tourner les engrenages de sa machine à rêves. Ce qui l'anime, ce qui nous anime. Il nous ranime, aussi, et nous emmène, là où l'univers des possibles est à réinventer, sur une planète inconnue dans laquelle je demeure, échouée sur un rocking-chair, suspendue à des cordages, accrochée à son coeur qui battait partout, essouflée de ses cris silencieux, vaguement inquiète devant une lettre. Déboussolée. Pièce détachée d'une machinerie céleste. Errante comblée en son pays.

A ma droite une amie (de coeur), à ma gauche un Président (de la république). Drôle, étrange, incongru, à l'unisson finalement de ce soir-là. Je les ai regardés tout les deux, furtivement, dans la pénombre, m'arrachant une seconde à l'homme enchanteur, là-bas, avec ses acolytes, si lointains et si proches. Regard qui déambule, du spectacle aux spectateurs, pour vérifier, pour savoir, si eux aussi... Oui je les ai regardés, mes voisins, l'une et l'autre. Ils avaient le même sourire, un sourire léger, à peine dessiné. Je les regardais tous deux, arborant le sourire de l'enfance au bord des lèvres. Alors j'ai su, et j'ai souri en les regardant sourire. J'ai regardé le temps revenu, partagé, distribué, le temps des éblouissements premiers.

Rien ne peut être dénoué sans quoi tout est dénoué.

Se dire que l'on peut mourir après avoir vu ça.

Non.

Se dire qu'on ne peut surtout pas mourir avant d'avoir revu ça.

C'est toujours la même histoire, the same old story :

"Devenir immortel. Et puis, mourir".

Emerveillement. Temps fluctuant. Coeur à l'envers.

Floating time.

"Au revoir parapluie", James Thierrée, 26 mai 2011. 

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J'ai hésité à le regarder, ce film, un peu mort, un peu figé, tellement contraire à l'instant vivant, et pourtant, après quelques jours, trop orpheline, j'ai cherché cette trace imparfaite ; je n'ai que ça maintenant qu'il sont partis, lui, l'instant, les fils lacés et délassés autour de mon âme tressaillante. Je suis perdue. Alors il reste ça, cette berceuse mélancolique et vraie, qui commence par une lettre à 2.07, qui m'achève et m'emporte, vague douce et obsédante, tressaillement intime, frissons pour l'éternité. Il y a eu ça, ces miettes d'absolu, et mille autres instants. Enjoy...

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