My photography has as its unique and systematic subject a free water, not staged, behaving both as a projection surface of our dreams, and as a total being, endowed with imagination and philosophy, capable of teaching, inspiring and creating. We should love water ...
Universal solvent, the water that connects us teaches us contemplation, meditation, acceptance of the unexpected and contrary forces, acceptance of the whole and its opposite, love of coexistence.
My photographic project, where water is the only subject, celebrates the coexistence of another possible world, where appeasement and unification prevail:
- A world where water is celebrated for its timeless and fertile Aqua Mater nature, in compensation for a world where representations of water focus on threatened or threatening water
- A world where borders liquefy and eventually dissolve, in compensation for a polarized world, to conquer territorial, community or identity borders.
A world where magic is born when the point of view changes, in compensation for a world where certainties are affirmed in confirmation biases
This celebration of water-being and being-water complements the traditional representations of water in art, and in photography in particular: decorative water, allegorical water, dark water (threatened or threatening), water-environment (marine, animal), water-experimental (macro photos of splashes, staging in water ... ).
ARTISTIC EXPRESSION
The artistic expression, resolutely pictorial, frees itself from all reality by focusing exclusively on the reflection of water, the transfiguration of scenes in an aquatic environment, or the abstractions created by water matter (liquid, icy, snow, mist).
Immersed in the dreamlike effects of water and reflections, I illustrate the optical properties and strangeness factors that disturb our bearings:
- The horizontality of the surface jostles the shooting marks. Exposing visions captured horizontally vertically frees us from meaning in every sense of the word.
- The movements of the water and its surface make (reflected) mountains danse
- The confusion of distances and depths: The surface, the bottom and the top intertwine; The near embraces in the distance
- Varying levels of translucency or opacity, depending on the shadows and the sun, making it possible to see more or less what is the bottom of the water, what evolves between the bottom and the surface, what is reflected on the surface.
- Smooth or grainy textures, depending on the roughness and their angle of diffraction, the depth of the water, which influences the refraction of light
These factors of strangeness combine with the various states of the elements of photography to create evocations alternately impressionist, surrealist, abstract, always poetic:
- The state of the bank reflected (the season that dresses the trees and rocks, the life that unfolds there...)
- The state of the water material (liquid, gaseous, icy, fresh, melting or melted snow)
- The state of the surface (spreading, quivering, iridescent, undulating; clean, dotted with leaves, seeded with mosses ...)
- The state of the bottom of the lake (sandy, rocky, loamy ...)
- The state of life between the surface and the bottom (dance of algae, fish ...)
- The state of the sky (light intensity, cloudy landscape, angle of light ... )
- The condition of the Photographer (sensitive to hues, compositions; overall, detail...)
BOOK 1 : ABSTRACTIONS
1) Astudy of water-matter, in all its color and phase states
A declaration of love to the shapes, textures and hues of water as a primordial material whose dreams are weaved. The plexi support enhances the depth and manifests the reflective properties of water
15 PHOTOS : https://decastro.myportfolio.com/la-matiere-eau-1
2) An ode to the various states of water, systematically juxtaposed: spreading, quivering, frosty, icy, in young or melting snow. The matte fine art paper support reflects the subtle hues and textures of the ice and snow material.
15 PHOTOS : https://decastro.myportfolio.com/renoncer-au-sens
BOOK 2 : TRANSFIGURATIONS
1) A spiritual journey to time immemorial and mythological, elevation
to the transcendent beings at the origin of the world, strong ecological alert
Spirits of our mind, animistic pareidolia created by reflection like those of Salvador Dali (swans reflecting elephants) who evoke chimeras or primitive totems, and that we interpret like Rorschach tests
15 PHOTOS : https://decastro.myportfolio.com/totems
2) An apology for resilience and the Art of the Fall. To drown the Angels, we travel to the times of Genesis or Revelation, according to our relationship to water. The poses evoke the mannerism and ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.
15 PHOTOS : https://decastro.myportfolio.com/the-surfing-angels-project-1
TECHNIQUES
The unique shooting place, the long time and the fatigue of the eye allow access to hallucinogenic visions, hypnotic, which are all modified states of consciousness.
Having come to a standstill, in a state of pure contemplation and meditation, I become an antenna and mediator of untold stories that I capture at the source of all life (water) and at the threshold of portals to parallel worlds (reflection).
I trust the magic of the ware, and I preserve it:
- Forget about multiple exposures, camera movements, staging
- Opt for a sober, minimal digital development, without retouching:
- Original white balance and color calibration (no color grading)
- No additions, deletions , or modifications of items
- No Photoshop: No layer merges, filters, or photomontages
SOURCES OF INSPIRATION
The nature of water____________________________
- Queen of Opposites: universal chemical solvent; Universal binding that transits between our bodies, the ecosystem, the planet, the cosmos (the water continuum)
- Migratory species that knows no borders, with this gift of ubiquity as a total being
- Elusive chameleon with multiple states and avatars
- Primordial element, primitive aqua mater witness of time immemorial
- Object of allegories and myth: the myth of narcissus, romantic water and states of the soul
The painters of water and reflection_____________________________________
- The vibrations and variations of the reflections of Pierre Soulages' Noir-Lumière
- Textures and shredding of the sky, by Claude Monet
- Turner's swirling marriages of water and light
- Turner's work on water opacity and texture of reflections.
- Van Gogh's studies on the fulgurances and forms of reflection
- Salvador Dali's studies on the surrealism of reflection and chimerical transfigurations
Asian and Eastern culture_______________________________________________________
- Chinese shan-shui, paintings mixing mountains (yang, stable) and water (yang, mobile) treated in wash (with water as solvent) and with poems that symbolize the harmony between man and nature (series "Turning the Mountains Over")
- Japanese kami, protective spirits of nature dear to the animism of Shinto rites (series "Invoking the Protectors")
- The mirror-portal to higher worlds, in Muslim art (series Parallel Worlds)
The major texts on water_______________________________________________________
- L'Eau et les Rêves, essay on the imagination of water, by philosopher Gaston Bachelard
- The Water That Connects Us, by Professor Marc Henry, on the continuum of water on earth and in the cosmos
- The4th state of water, by Professor Gerald Pollack, on the biochemical mechanisms of water
- The Nature of Water, by Yann Oliveaux, mythology and philosophy of water
