Bernard Plossu Revisited

It has been a little over two years since I wrote about Monsieur Plossu and his photographs.  I was fortunate to purchase three of his photographs a few months ago.  I immediately had them framed and hung them in my livingroom.  I sort of forgot about them, in the way that you can do when something fits and becomes part of your environment.  Your atmosphere. 

When I was in Paris last, I saw a book.  Plossu Paris (Textes d’Isabelle Huppert et Brigitte Ollier Éditions Marval, 448 pages, 29,90€).  In French only, unfortunately, but photographs speak.  And in this case, loudly.   I particularly noticed the book, because the front cover was one of the images that I bought last year.  And this combined with a quote by Plossu that I made a note of, compelled me think about his images in a different way.

Plossu, Bernard – Paris

I have always thought of Plossu as a ‘from the hip’ sort of photographer.  Someone who is not too uptight about horizon lines being level, perfect focus and so forth.  A little accidental almost.  But then I read this, and it made me think:

“less good photos of Frank bring more poetry than perfect pictures by Henri Cartier-Bresson.”

– Bernard Plossu

You have to think about this a little bit.  On the face of it, coming from a fellow photographer, this is almost heresy.  But does he have a point?  When composition is perfect, lighting perfect, triangles perfect, framing perfect, what else is there?  You look at the image in admiration, but the story is complete and there it is.  Well, I think this is where Plossu has a point.  If you look at Robert Frank’s work, there is a play, or whimsy about it that is perhaps poetic.  If you believe the stories, his seminal book “The Americans” contained not his best photographs from his 10000 mile journey across North America, but those that he felt worked.  Which means that like Plossu – in perhaps not quite as exteme a way, but still – Frank has a few that are slightly out of focus, perhaps not the greatest composition, or should I say not conforming to the accepted rules of the game.  There is the odd one that is askew.  But Frank’s work has poetry.  I think that is what made “The Americans” such a hit, both with photographers, and-non photographers alike.

Poetry to me is a language onto itself.  As much said, as left unsaid.  A collection of words carefully selected to communicate something, which is usually an emotion or feeling, often atmospheric.  But importantly, the carefully selected words and what you make of them is founded in the economy of the words.  The few that say the most. 

In so many ways, a well executed photograph does the same thing.  I think often about discussions I have had with other photographers as to whether photographs that you make should have a title, or description.

The argument for no title: I don’t want to push what I saw onto the viewer.  Just because I see something, doesn’t mean that everyone else sees the same thing, and indeed a title will perhaps rob the viewer of the opportunity to make their own story, seeing something entirely different.  

The argument for title:  I have an intent with my photographs and they form part of a narrative, or say something specific that I want to convey.  A title helps set the stage, location, time, date, etc. 

Either is of course fine, though I must say I fall in the first category.

In a photograph what you exclude is often equally, or more important than what is in the frame.  Take my second Plossu.  To some it may simply be a few deck chairs in a rainstorm, or wet fog.  To someone else it could be a poem about the joy of being alone, at last, maybe on a ship, away from everyone.  A place to dream.  To me ironically, it is about a smell.  The smell of being on the water when it is misty and damp, but with hope, as there is enough sun to form quite strong shadows of the chairs on the deck.  I can smell the salt water, the seaweed and the mist that only happens on the ocean.  I love this photograph for the permission it gives me to dream and make up my own story. 

Plossu, Bernard – Deck Chairs on the QEII

Now, the question of course…. Does it matter that Plossu titled it:  Deck Chairs on the QEII?  Well, not for me, because it affirms what I was already thinking, so no harm, no foul.  But, to someone else, I don’t know.

The cover shot of the book Plossu Paris is to me one of Plossu’s greatest photographs.  It is too simple.  Too easy.  Yet, he did it, and it has a quality that I think is both exceptional and bold.  The photograph is exposed in such a way that the tablecloth is all you see.  The furniture all but disappears.  The press-folds in the heavy white linen form gentle shadows.  It is the consummate black and white photograph.  But, not pretentious.  Not in your face.  It doesn’t show off.  It is gentle, elegant and egalitarian.  A café?  A fancy restaurant?  At home?  It doesn’t matter.  It could be everywhere and anywhere.  But it is so beautifully elegant.  It is delicious! And it let’s you make your own story. Poetic.

Harbel

Discovering New Talented Photographers

Bernard Plossu (born 1945) is not a well-known name in international photography, unless you happen to be French. Or at least, he was not to me. He is an avid traveler and his photography reflects everything from the journey itself, to what he sees when he gets there. I cannot say that I have known his name for long, only that I found him, a couple of years ago, when I was preparing for a great trip to Morocco with a Moroccan born Canadian friend, who took us on a fantastic trip from Essaouira to Fez, via Marrakesh and the southern interior, across the Atlas Mountains, not once, but twice!

Like I always do, when I travel, I take a look at photographers who have shot in the area that I am going to. I had a fair bit of notice, and therefore could look around Paris Photo, which I attend every year. One of the booths had a great photo of a few djellabahs laid over a stone-wall. A beautifully composed black and white photograph, in a size that I can hold and admire – the print was approximately 20 x 30 cm – and was hanging just below eye level. My eyes wondered to the label, which advised that the photographer was Bernard Plossu and that the photograph was taken in Morocco.

During our trip to Morocco, I made a lot of photographs, some with which I am almost entirely satisfied and a few I wish I could do over. It is difficult to make photographs in a place where the population is notoriously unhappy about you pointing a camera at them, so a lot of images, out of necessity, are ill prepared and very spontaneous.

When a people dresses in a characteristic way, it is often easy to go a little ethnographic, which is of course totally acceptable, but there are countless photographs in circulation of ‘types’. Postcards were sold by the millions in the first half of the 20th century, depicting your standard ‘type’ in a hood, face in the shadow, walking along the narrow streets of Fez with his donkey, or the more underground postcards of disrobed girls, often young, who for small change became eternalized in the cannon of poor taste and colonial dominance.

As you walk through the streets of almost every town and city in Morocco, you notice that not much has really changed in 100s of years. Delivery vehicles are often replaced with carts and donkeys, for the simple reason that the streets are very narrow and dark to keep the punishing sun at bay, and the temperatures just a few degrees cooler. In Morocco, it is possible to make photographs, which are entirely timeless. But at the same time you are at great risk of the cliché. So what do you do? Well you might think like Plossu, who seems to have been looking for the things that may be timeless, but would not have been photographed by the conventional travel photographer. Working in black and white, as do I, Plossu has taken great advantage of the bright light and deep shadows that are so intense in sun-baked Morocco. And of course, you then add the shapes that are so foreign to the west, of men and women wearing a cloak with a pointy hood and pointy slippers, which on their own make great shadows and in combination can take on a modernist feel when the composition allows.

One of the great things about Plossu is his eye. He has been very consistent throughout his career. He likes things a little quirky and things that are a little off. He has spent many years building his personal collection of photographs 1200 or 1300 of which have recently been given to the MEP, the French museum for photography, which is one of the great stops in Paris, should one be through here in the future.

The interesting thing about the collection that Plossu has donated is the absolute breadth of photographers and subject matter, from landscapes, to portraits, to close-ups and pure photojournalism. They are mostly small in size, forcing the viewer in tight to have a good look. But most importantly, the 1200+ photographs are by more than 600 different photographers, and all are the result of Plossu being given the work, or him having traded his own work for it. It is a remarkable achievement, to build a large collection of great photography, without spending a cent.

For me, the viewer of the 160, or so photographs from the Plossu gift, that are currently on display in the upper gallery of the MEP, the excitement is around discovering photographers that I have never heard of, and am seeing for the first time.

Each year, we go to galleries far and wide to discover new photographers. Some years, we go for many months without discovering someone new, who fits our particular esthetic. The Plossu show was the first time in a very long time that I saw dozens of names in the credits that I had never heard of. A cornucopia of talent and a joy to behold.

I made a lot of notes and enjoyed several evenings of pleasure scouring the internet looking up photographers to find more of their work.

Sadly, the Plossu gift has no catalogue, or even a list of photographs on display, at least not that I could find, but it does remain in the MEP collection after the exhibition comes down, in a few days. I went twice, and could go again, there was that much to discover. Thank you M. Plossu, you have opened my eyes yet again and I like what I see!

Harbel,
Paris

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