Surfaces Provençales – an extract A photography project by Chris Garvi

“I have been working on “Surfaces Provençales” for two years . 
As a native of the region, it has always surprised me that Provence is one of the most visited and popular area in Europe, and well-known throughout the world. It is probably difficult to still notice beauty when you’ve grown in it. So I wanted to know what Provence meant to me…

I’m looking for my place. I’m looking for the right distance. What is my relationship to my surroundings? What is my relationship with the land where I was born and I grew up? For this project, I go through these places that have had a visual impact over the years. I go back to the places that have shaped my eyes, about myself, about others… Places that are like mirrors.

When I see these places, I always dream of something else, other places. This is a kind of inter-textuality, a place that throws me beyond what my camera and the negatives can ever show. Since childhood, I’ve fed a huge desire to be on the road. I love the road. I try to photograph places like movie posters, invitations to travel …

Without the portraits I’m making along the way, this project would have no reason to be. Beyond the fact that I’m interested in the passage of human in all the places I’m photographing, these people stand as links between the land and my own vision. I’m very thankful to all these people who shows a lot of interest in the project and accept to be photographed without restraint…”

Open for entries

color portrait photo of a sadhu and monkey in Varanasi, India by Mahendra Bakle
© Mahendra Bakle
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