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Ruins of the Old World

Three months ago I found in a suitcase I left in Liège (Belgium) a dozen of films from 2014. For this forgotten essay I used rolls of Ilford Pan 100 and a point-and-shoot film camera. I wanted to make my photographic process easier. It was reminding me when I started photographing  with a little camera I borrowed from my girlfriend 12 years before. At this time I didn’t even know who Cartier-Bresson or Winogrand were !

Using a point-and-shoot camera is really not the same to me than shooting with a rangefinder camera. I just have to frame and to click the button, no need to think about settings or results.
The only problem is that a lot of photos were totally failed because of that low-speed film I had chosen. Northern France where I come from and Belgium are known to be cloudy yet!

© Nathanael Fournier

© Nathanael Fournier

© Nathanael Fournier

The project’s name is from one of the first photo I shot: a chalk graffiti on Saint-Lambert Square in Liège.
It was written “Les Ruines du Vieux-Monde”: Ruins of the Old World.

© Nathanael Fournier

© Nathanael Fournier

I didn’t say “Yeah, let’s make a project called Ruins of …”. These words stayed on my mind for months and I remembered them when I edited more than 400 pictures I received from labo.
Choice was easy: there was a lot of blurry and totally failed pictures and a lot with friends and party people. These photos with friends looked like staged portraits and didn’t fit the essay. It was about street-photography and wandering, it was about myself and the people, it was about loneliness and modern world.
Unfortunately this project ended when I broke my camera.
Nowadays I’m still wandering and I’m shooting in color.

 

BIO

I’m a 34 year old photographer from France. Walking around France, Corsica and Belgium with only one little bag and my dog and my film cameras, I am looking for moments of everyday life and street scenes. Photography allows me to wander all the day, to meet people in any place, to have a talk with anyone, to loose myself in big cities. It’s my best reason for not having a full-time job. I’m living in Wanderland…

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Nathanael Fournier