Autumn on the Battlefield

It is finally online, so be curious like the dog and go have a look at my latest project on YannisDessureault.com . I won’t tell you what it is about so be sure to read the overview…   And for those who haven’t seen it yet here’s the link to the first part (which was photographed during the summertime).

Winter is here…

Yes. And the exploration continues. Tourism is like a system and although cold has a tendency to slow things down, the system never completely stops. People still have to work…despite the cold. And tourists, despite their tendency to overlook what they should wear in such a cold place, are still taking pictures of the extraordinary things they see. And sometimes they find things that, even to me, are surprising to see…like this woman street performer (in the image below) who was simply staying still in the freezing cold. The sun disappears quickly in the narrow alleys of the old city…

Another one from the city

The old meets the new under the autumn rain and the light pollution.

City Skyline

Ok here’s a new category that I will just have to create because I’m apparently shooting a lot of cityscapes…so here’s the first one:

 

Recent portraits…

Quebec City

I’m heading out of the city for a couple of days and I thought I would post my latest pictures…of the urban landscape.

The smallest photons

A while ago I was at my parent’s and as we often do after a nice supper, we went for a walk in the woods. There was a full moon and instead of taking pictures the way I usually do, I started to let my instincts guide me. Momentarily leaving the “document”, I began the exploration of a world that I had almost forgotten. It felt good.

As I am writing this, I am reminded of what Magnum’s Richard Kalvar said in his Magnum in Motion piece called Earthlings (which is also a book): “It’s slightly dishonest, but I say that I’m just collecting photons that would disappear anyway…”   Although we both play with photons, my work doesn’t look at all like his. Fortunately. But in both cases I think that the photon is a pretty magical thing because it allows us to see what would otherwise remain…unseen. And in both cases, I think we are bending the reality, just a bit, to allow the “observer” to see things from a slightly different angle. From another perspective.

I only recently understood what I was doing as I stood in the middle of a huge clear-cut north of La Tuque at night, also under a full moon. On a roadtrip to document the St-Maurice river, we had decided to camp in what had once been a pine forest. Even though it was full, the moon was rather small and at first I thought the light didn’t seem to be strong enough to let me create a picture.  Still, the moon was in front of me and I had to put my hand in front of it in order to block the light that was preventing me to see our camp. This is what made me realize the real power of the light reflected from this small moon. As we went further in, we eventually lost the small light that was coming from a candle in our tent. When my eyes eventually got used to the low intensity of the light, I realized that in fact, in a way, this light was as harsh as direct sunlight. It was not as strong, but I could see my shadow, a clear sign that the light was there.

The experience was rather surreal. I probably had a similar feeling to that of being on the moon itself, or Mars, where the experience of light must be awesome. Anyway, ever since that first night with my parents, whenever I got the chance, I have been “making” pictures during full moons…

The following images were all “created” in the clear-cut I mentioned above.