Case Study

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I've been given my first SX-70 sonar in 1994. Like a lot people, I immediately enjoyed the instant process. I think I did begin using optics in front of the camera when I wanted to shoot small objects. Few years later, while I was working in a company offering digital transfers of old movies, I played around a lot with optics to enhance the quality of the films I was converting. As I had a lot of time to spend while I was doing those transfers, I began to shoot pictures of those old films with the SX-70, then I custom made some specific tools and I started shooting regularly with optical lenses in front of the camera.

The pictures are opticaly distorted while I'm shooting. I reshoot pictures. I reshoot them from PC monitors or TV sets. Each one I use give me a different kind of texture. I now master enough my technic to get what I want in 1 or 2 shoots but it can happen that I need a whole polaroid pack before I'm happy. If I'm happy with what comes out, I let the film dry for 48h then I scan it several times it's own size. Then come the digital process with Photoshop: First comes the cleaning of all the dust I couldn't blow away before the scan. As I'm a little obsess with the look of the final output I can spend up to 2 or 3 hours just for the cleaning. Then come the color correction part. I do have a certain control of the global white balance before shooting as I can calibrate the screen depending of what I'm in the mood for. Sometimes, I'm just happy with what is on the Polaroid, others times , I do change a lot the color balance of the picture. I mostly use curves and selective colors. I do my test print on an Epson R800. The final prints are done on either an Epson 4000 for small to medium size and on an Epson 9600 for bigger format.

The lenses I'm using are for now... a well kept secret ;). What I can say for people who would like to experiment, is that I began using magnifying lenses before having my own made lenses. I guess someone who knows a little about optics could figured out what I'm using. I may certainly in the future give more details about the technic.

Music takes big part in my creative process. My taste is quite eclectic but I mostly listen to Miles Davis' Electric period albums while I'm shooting. For those of your readers who knows, Big Fun & Pangaea are my favorites.

I work most often at night. I do enjoy the quietness and the tranquility of this timeshift.

I'm not really trying to give a sense to my art. I don't concidere myself as an intellectual artist for now. My main "goal" is to please my esthetic sense and let others have fun with whatever they see in my work.