Photo Album
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Animals
Shall I tell you? I do not like animals very much. They can draw from my inspiration some interesting pictures with their expressionless head, their far away looking eyes (except dogs sometimes), but all of this is not very consequential.I admit there are domestic animals that can eventually be friendly fellows, more than many others. As this gutter-cat, presently passed away, for which my children and my wife expressed a kind of love formerly. Me too (a little), influenced by my family.Finally, our "inferior brothers" stay as incomprehensible as a computer because of their unexpected attitudes. Moreover, as regards animals, because of sometimes their disappointing aggressivity. Effectively I have never seen a computer getting the same bad temper.In short ones and others - animals and computing equipments - are really extraterrestrial beings. I mean they have a common characteristic : they have difficulties to be understood. Besides we can have the feeling they have begun to mix when we hear terms like "mouse" or "chat" (cat in French) whereas people speak about data processing !(copyright Jean-Michel Cagnon)
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Religious Architectures
What is remarkable at the first glance is harmony and audacity of the curves. Our eye enjoys to follow the lines of the constituents of the edifice which incite to meditation and silence. Absolutely yes, we can make silence inside us among a mob who walks in a church. Entering a religious edifice means beginning a brief stage, a short in time retreat, a break with outside bedlam. Do we believe? Don't we believe? Sincerely who is able to definitively answer this question? The main thing is to make a pause with oneself and intuitively feel we perhaps are at the threshold of something else, elsewhere... I add nothing. One's own experience for each of us. Nevertheless I remain persuaded that the limits of our universe will be destroyed a day... likewise the ruins of an abbey continue testifying a past life, which is perpetuated elsewhere, in another way. It is to admit indeed taht only the catholic or orthodox buildings suggest these thoughts. The protestant churches show a simplicity bound to History, that besides I entirely understand. It also is true that we can criticize an overabundance in some cathedrals, going until make us forget the main things. But when in that field, a happy medium can be found, whatever in a country church or in a huge basilica, then magic happens provided to be available to this approach.(copyright Jean-Michel Cagnon)
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Country
It will be said that, because of my pessimism, I'm still prevented from utterly enjoying the beauties which life accepts to give us sometimes. Most of pictures which you're going to see show an idealized country. In fact it's because of my roving photographer's investigation. I'm used to watch over, walking or standing; to select or take profit of the best lighting possible; to analyse the view angle in order to highlight the harmonious shape of branches or mountains; to introduce a personage in a wide landscape in order to bring a sensation of life...By the way, let's speak of life : our present countries often are empty of any rural people, farm animals, noises and rumours of agricultural activities. People don't walk any more. Only, the wandering dogs bother the tripper. It's a pity indeed. Even so, however we shouldn't be incited - shall I remember it - to idealize a past mainly made of a hard, very hard life. The magnificence of autumnal foliage did not compensate the rigour of snowy winters. Yesterday it did not compensate the absence of tap water or disquiets about subsistence. Today it does neither compensate isolation nor solves the problems of preservation of an activity.Nevertheless how beautiful the country is...(copyright Jean-Michel Cagnon)
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Places and Men
In a way, places just as men (and women) could equally be concerned. The first likewise the second ones print their personality in you more or less. Choice for each of us to accept or not that influence. They forever leave a souvenir of their passage through your life. Positively or negatively, and this independently of the duration of their attendance.Positively : it is the smile of an unknown woman met in the street whom you will never see again, it is wisdom emerging from a confidential conversation, it is peace inspired by harmony of a landscape...Negatively : it is the truly wicked speech shot by a person whose consequent hurt forever remains in you, it is resentment following a fight, it is the refusal of a dis-pleasant or hostile sight... There also are places and human beings that don't impress you because of their insipidity.There may be reciprocity : each of us may leave an influence on others. As to the places, we project on them emotions or sensations coming from their vision. Thus there is an exchange, as much with human beings as physical places or material things. So much so that somebody (Alphonse de Lamartine) one day laid the question "Inanimate objects, haven't you a spirit in fact?"(Copyright Jean-Michel Cagnon)
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"S" as Strange
Strange, stranger, these two words have a different look ("air" in French) and a similar look in the same time.Strange is all that seems to be stranger (foreign) to the rational things, to the concrete reality, all that opens the access to imaginary and poesy. I think we all of us need to "frequent" the strange. It is a security exit in our stressing lives.Useless to look for him. Because he is a fanciful one, he may sometimes appear to us as in that nightly dance of children, a part of an entertainment, or those shadows of artists projected on a scene wall. He also may make us a visit during walks by night inside or outside the cities. At last he friendly comes and sees us if we are able to stimulate our imagination and our souvenirs idealized by this latest.Unfortunately some individuals, taking profit of credulity of their owns, pollute the world of strange... They disguise him in order to take pleasure to frighten and make believe what doesn't exist. To be fair would mean to admit that strange supposes fields - scientific - which are outside our knowledge - religious - which belong to faith.Likewise the strange, I hardly open a door, about the discussion science versus religion, that I refuse to close. I leave choice to each one to continue or not continue this discussion...(copyright Jean-Michel Cagnon)
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"F" as Feminine and Flower
Fortunately beauty and gentleness exist in our world governed by brutality...The flowers go through Earth, giving it a harmonious equilibrium.The flowers go through our life, giving it the ability to be bearable.From the flower to the woman the poet takes the plunge.I'm not a poet.The flower appears to me sometimes prickly but it remains so beautiful !Contrary to a famous singer's proclamation, the woman does not still represent the future of the man. However besides her prettiness she possesses unequalled heart and courage qualities.That's why, without one and other, we couldn't live...(copyright Jean-Michel Cagnon)
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General News
No ! it's not about the trivialities found in the daily papers, "filler items" as it is currently said. This page aims at being the collection of a few private pictures which make the canvas of our existence and may tell modest events intensively felt. It will too be possible to find symbolic views tending to think about our human condition, this without desiring to take risks of losing one's head !In fact, it is general news of our life of which Maupassant declared "it is neither so good nor so bad as we think".(copyright Jean-Michel Cagnon)
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Drawing Shapes
Light ! I'm drawing in your honour : that's a pompous way indeed to explain the word "photography".Every techniques of figurative picture - drawing, painting - try to reproduce real things with more or less realism. This latest should not be an absolute aim. You had better avoid it, because you would take a risk to obtain a rigorously exact sight of the model. Without any sensibility. Through his work, the artist's emotion must be discreetly expressed, in order to begin an exchange of points of view with the spectator and have a personal sensation from him, by return. Exciting visitor's imagination, what more remarkable?Whatever its nature - figurative or abstract - any worthy picture should reply to this exigency. One and other use clever means, as structural solidity, elegantly drawn architectural lines, subtle contracts of greys or colours, in short the graphic shape.Graphic shape created by the author. Or suggested by the characteristics of the model : a lighting against the sun, a snowy landscape, a proximity of shadows and illuminations, a slim subject, and so on... In that second case, there is a mute accordance between the creator and his model...(copyright Jean-Michel Cagnon)
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The Trees
The Good Lord has created the trees so that men can lean on them when they are tired. He has too thought that trees would supply shadow beyond, in order to spare human beings from sun heat. He said to the man : "You will earn your bread by hard working and sweating". Then, magnanimous, He added : "Resting a few minutes under an oak, you will have to sweat less however". Creating the tree, God realized it could be useful for more other things :- wood for firing when time of sweating is over, to build roofs and ships.- branch to faggot and tie, to climb and watch.- bark to tan, to attend illness, to make wine corks. - flower to entertain our eyes.- fruit to entertain our stomachs.- leaf to purify air whereas it lives, to improve ground whereas it dies.The tree is like God on earth. In fact, does not a tree seem like a big hand that protects? (copyright Jean-Michel Cagnon)
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The Sea
"The sea watched dancing along luminous shores is a silver mirror..." (Charles Trenet). "Tell me the sea, the blue and the green which dance among the waves..." (Jean Ferrat). "My Mediterranean... oh my Mediterranean sea..." (Herbert Pagani too early passed away). "And I remain for a long time observing the sea..." (Alain Barrière). They are innumerable all those who have sung the infinite and fascinating faces of the marine universe.What life, so different from ours, does the ocean hide? How could we explain the magic suggested by it?Friendly sea? Not every time ! A few decades ago, when they lived, this subject was surely evoked in other words by the surviving shipwrecked persons of SS Titanic ! Moreover Victor Hugo presents us the sea as a terrifying element which men must fight to earn their food, even losing their life sometimes...The sea revealed its charm and its cruelty when one day it decided to keep forever François de Roubaix, a composer and... an experienced scuba diver.However it shows an attractive smile whereas it also evokes "holidays" and whispers to our children's ears "sand castles", "baths", "infinite freedom", "family resting on the sand", "first love"...Yes of course, remove the sea thus remove life. That's why, in spite of its moods and thanks to its favours, we should respect it...(copyright Jean-Michel Cagnon).
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The mountain
The mountains are the wrinkles of Earth. Huge for men. Insignificant with regard to cosmos. Seen from very far, our planet shows its cracks less than an orange makes appear its peel texture.Mountain is beautiful, I'm not the first to declare that. Not content with testifying the geological past of our globe, it brings to it the infinite variety of its landscapes, from the modest hill to the lofty peaks which meet the sky. Can we imagine to live on an utterly flat and glum sphere?I admit to feel a preference for the low or mid mountain ranges, which don't oppress me like their big sisters. I'm not either the first to evoke a similarity between the terrestrial and feminine curves : in both cases harmony and charm dominate, likewise the changes of temper.In both cases too, when feeling aesthetic emotion, we are incited to desire immortalizing the artistic views and the round designs of "lady nature". At the risk of shocking some people, I should even suggest that a photo take of a landscape, when thought hard, is an ecstatic union. Once we have become calm again, we realize that we never completely possess the other. So much the better !(copyright Jean-Michel Cagnon)
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Night
Using a double meaning of the French word "nuit" ("night" and "is harmful"), the comic joker Raymond Devos said : "Se coucher tard nuit". That could be translated : "Going to bed late nightly is naughty". In fact that's not true for everybody. If it is unusual, going to bed late is profitable. We can feel that early sleeping shortens our life.Night is this marvellous step of the day where our nerves cease being solicited, our spirit is available for everything else far from daily triviality, impossible things and the maddest dreams become possible. Of course, addition of these leads us to the feast, its colours, its illuminations, its enjoyments, its joy although... the story of the sad clown is not false.After-all, let's be realistic, night also can be distressing when the sick man feels his pain (physically or mentally) increases with darkness. So we have to moderate. Likewise Rameau in his famous "Hymne à la nuit" (Night Song), when it's possible, we should have to appreciate the calm glamorous mystery and smoothness of shadow surrounding the night. (copyright Jean-Michel Cagnon)
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The Trains
The steam locomotives are not dead; they have gone to make their most wonderful trip : that of souvenir... Souvenirs, souvenirs (as Johnny Hallyday sang)... I have been alive for more than 60 years and many things have changed. For instance the trains. Not better. They have become common and insipid... They run faster but don't still arrive by the hour. In the stations it 's often heard : "Kindly apologize us for our delââây !". OK stop, let's change course and speak of the good things concerning the trains. I'm in Paris in the 50s, on a road bridge over a truly large railways place.Here and there a few courageous steam engines, proud and haughty. Can I recognize a Mountain P 241 nearly as high-performance as an electric engine? Maybe I'll have the opportunity to watch close to me the unique Baltic 232 U1, built by the engineer Marc de Caso, or more again the extraordinary Niagara 242 A1, the most powerful machine in Europe (6000 HP), the masterpiece of the great thermodynamicist André Chapelon?I also perceive some modest diesel engines pulling tandem because of their restricted strength. At last, here are the fabulous electric engines, magnificent symbols of the modernism, but discreet in spite of their admitted power.All those locomotives are the honourable ancestors of the present trains, surely less poetic for me, but famous makers of dreams for the children of today.(copyright Jean-Michel Cagnon)
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The City
There is the man, then his clothes, then his house. The latest two represent his first and his second protection. The city is the collection of the second covers of the human beings.The city reflects the existences of the persons - from past and of present - who have built it and live inside. I don't mean that an ugly city characterizes its inhabitants, no more than individuals who reside in a pretty town are necessarily honest people.I merely suggest that the buildings and their organization, their conditions of preservation testify more or less happy times of the cities. They also give information about priority granted to arts, trade, industry...Besides the word "city" remains indefinite in its meaning for it may name a big metropolis or a borough, so called by the inhabitants of the neighbour village.At last it is to notice that, likewise a human being, we can love or hate a city according to our vision of it or the circumstances of our rendezvous with it. For example, as regards me personally and Paris, the capital of the cities, my relations have been so variable. The visitor will realize, reading my texts of different dates.Consequently the city could be qualified "living entity", what explains why the poets have adulated or cursed it. Is the city the amplifier of our positive and negative sensations?(copyright Jean-Michel Cagnon)
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Prague 2011
Since my younger years, I have been seduced by romantic charm of the big european cities : many statues on the façades, in the squares; omnipresence of water in the fountains, the important rivers; the subtle Northern lightings and the contrasts between china blue of the skies and half-light of the interior courtyards; the remarkable architecture of the wrought-iron works : balconies, park-gates; the entanglement of the city-clamours, typical all sounds of those countries : carillons of bell-towers, ringings of clocks, particular rustle of leaves of plane trees and paulownias, horns of tramways...Everything of this showed me new horizons, so different from my native Morocco, excessively filled with sun, dryness and lacking nuances, according to me. Naïvely too, I added surroundings of eternal holidays enjoyments to those Northern idealized "postal cards".Adult, I have never succeeded in getting rid of these sensations. Visited or not, Vienna, Paris, Warsaw, Madrid... and the others still make me dream... Recently, I and some of mines could go to Prague : the one hundred-towered-city, the capital of music, the residence of the Golem, the metropolis burdened with painful History, immortal in spite of that and, lovingly rocked by the Moldau. Therefore see these photos whose colours I have slightly enhanced to fight the darkness of a grey and so... romantic sky.(copyright Jean-Michel Cagnon)
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"L" as Loneliness
... and finally each of us is still alone. Yes of course, and on the whole it's not the worst.Some of us particularly the lovers, slaves of the love at first sight, dream a fusional condition (one plus one equal one). That's an illusion only. Loneliness can't be separated from our human condition.. Without it, it is totally impossible to be a person who is able to voluntarily choose. Taking account of course of our radius of action.. For, if we are actually alone, we are not on the other hand absolutely free. A child, although reassured and excessively coddled, remains alone. As soon as possible he must fight his fears and his frustrations. It's never as marvellous as he could wish. Consequently all of us, we look for the others. To feel better, to forget oneself and take care of the neighbour ones, perhaps love them. By this way we break isolation and we lessen loneliness. In fact that loneliness is profitable for it deeply stimulates us and allows to actually live our life. I joyfully and consciously feel I've got a body and a spirit, I'm able to enjoy my choices (smell a recently gathered flower or leave to America). But I also sadly and consciously feel I have to fight my interior devils. White and black are the "domino" of our life... (copyright Jean-Michel Cagnon)
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Colour spots
Anguish of the white paper... that I felt, when I was a young pupil, whereas I had to write a personal text. Then I nervously sucked the end of my pen which, by dint of being shaken, inevitably dropped one or several violet ink marks on the virginity of my paper. The construction of my work began with bad conditions ! The spots that I propose you today are not the same. They partially or completely fill the frame of the photo and get this one more beautiful. As playful and charming fairies... As the happy hours of our life which, without them, would desesperatly be morose... Let's love those spots ! Natural or man-made, bright or discret, main components or revealing other constituents of the picture. Moreover, from time to time, let's know how to free from our means of artistic creation, let's go in the field to visit all these colour spots and observe with our eyes this world which sometimes appears us so pretty... (copyright Jean-Michel Cagnon)
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Morrocan South 1968
From a forgotten place I have just exhumed a collection of old photos. It seems they have not been excessively affected by dampness. I have discovered again my first slides taken in 1968 (45 years ago!) during a car trip in great Morrocan South. I then used for the first time a 24x36 camera, fot the connoisseurs a compact with telemetric focusing, without any automatism, a Voigtländer Vito CSR, with a fixed focalled 50 lens. What a wonderful gift! whereas till now I had used the venerable family folding camera... The slides are relatively in good condition (they were stocked in nearly waterproof boxes). However... how could I say, without a scanner and a slide-projector and anxious to show you them, I have made something unorthodox : with the help of the digital camera I have photographed each slide introduced in a pocket viewer. Loss of quality is inevitable as well for definiteness as for colours which I have tried to improve with the computer. Anyway they have a charmful retro look. Thus I present you them, with some emotion. In spite I have written (see : "Une Vie Fantastique") that "my country is not my country but in my head", seeing again those photos gives me a little heart shock. (copyright Jean-Michel Cagnon 2013)
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Four wheels
I don't tell extraordinary news, announcing that showing a piece of a picture is more demonstrative than the entire picture. The harmonious curve of a feminine shoulder incites us to sublimate and idealize the woman. Seeing a modest field grass, a bunch of wild flowers or a mere water reflection actually reminisces the surrounding landscape more than if it was entirely shown. The drawing of a radiator-grill or a headlight - descended from cleverness of car manufacturers of mid-century 20th - lets us remembering of the splendid bodies including at that time curves, inverted curves, chromes... sometimes in excess. Even modest cars are delightful to be contemplated. Moreover those magnificent metal beauties remind us some fabulous trips. Flash-backs through our childhood whereas we could be entertained when crossing an unknown landscape or a quiet little village. The reassuring purr of the engine was as charming as the noisy car-radio. The fresh air through the open glass, bringing us the outside rumblings, was so much more joyful than the confined air conditioning. Well let's not avoid our present time ; the cars are remarkably designed... thanks to experiments due to creation and amelioration of their honourable ancestors ! (copyright Jean-Michel Cagnon).
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When Morocco meets Provence
Yes of course I say and I say again (cf. une-vie-fantastique.e-monsite.com) that my country is not my country, merely considering the land. Actually my country is in my head. It is all my life with its positive or negative experiences. In spite of that, speaking of the land, my country is divided in two parts, for I have lived on both sides of Mediterranean sea. Therefore sometimes I can have a jolly good, really jolly good feeling when the two countries meet during a simple weekend. That's what happened the 21st and 22nd September 2013 whereas the city of Buis-les-Baronnies (Drôme Provençale) - the residence of my in-laws - welcomed a Moroccan fair organized by its North African inhabitants. A real success, plus a surprise for me because I did not know about this event, that time visiting Buis by chance. It's difficult to relate in a few words. Colours, scents, harmony, the craft, the Arab, Berber or Egyptian music, the tasty mint tea and the delicious Ramadan soup kindly offered, the honeycombs, information on oriental calligraphy, tales told to the children in both languages, demonstration of henna-making up, a lecture about Turkish bath... everything surrounded with the splendid Provençal area of Buis. Moreover a conviviality and an atmosphere so different, so far from our sinister European fairs characterized by the foolish and hammering techno music and the false merry faces of the people... I say no more, the present author of these writings furnishes you a selection of his best pictures. (Digital photos taken with a SLR camera). (Copyright Jean-Michel Cagnon).
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Somewhere in Ardèche
What a strange creation... both able of the better and the worse... is there an architect in this universe which we can't understand sometimes?My digital camera was very much used those latest days of November 2013 and those first days of December. During a stay whereas I didn't expect to move the shutter so often. This action precisely is due to these subtle lightings of Autumn which stimulated my love for remarkable works of nature (when it's in a good mood).You should know that all these pictures were selected in an area maximum 50 meters around my temporary residence, in South of Ardèche.Of course landscapes reminding the famous song of Jean Ferrat about the mountain. But also fantastic sights or imaginary panoramas shown within an ice lid containing chestnut leaves and air bubbles. The lid was removed from the top of a barrel filled with water, then laid on a wooden shelf. Or furthermore, other curious pictures issued from an ordinary tablemat made with a simple poplar trunk slice.We therefore are incited to think of Pascal who placed man equally distant from infinitely great and from infinitesimal... the men of century 21st knowing besides that infinity may appear in a mere droplet... (Copyright Jean-Michel Cagnon)
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Rabat from 1964 to 1976
Rabat, "My country" (Moun Païs) as it is sung by Claude Nougaro. In fact whatever I can say, the land of my childhood remains thoroughly alive even if I may have desired "to kill" it. Rabat is a garden city, a urbanistic masterpiece dating from Lyautey which nowadays has continued to expand with the same spirit. Material evidence its whole territory was registered in 2012 to the UNESCO World Heritage. At present I offer you a time machine with white and black photos taken by means of my 1st camera, a folding using 6x9 negatives. Later on I introduced this camera in my luggage when I left to Marseilles end of 1965 in order to continue to study. Then a new 35mm telemetric focus camera allowed me to make photos in colours. Neither of them was automatic, which was excellent to learn photography.. Since, it happened some technical progress... (copyright Jean-Michel Cagnon 2016)
