Café - Passé
“Café-Passé” shows former French bars delivered to the caducity of time
Born in the Alsatian forests and serious traveler, Christophe has long been content with admiring the photographs of others, talented friends or recognized authors. Gently he took the camera, before immersing himself more seriously in the world of photography in favor of a technical training in evening courses sprinkled with some Master Class and other dedicated readings. Open to various photographic experiments, the themes dear to Christophe, often documentary, like to keep the road as a background. A mention at the Archiphoto contest in 2014 with a series on isolated habitats in Northern Europe get his foot in the door. He decides to embark on long-term works by working on two complementary series. "L’hexactitude of the gesture" takes a sort of tour of France of craftwork in images and texts goes alongside "Café-passé". The result of thousands of kilometers traveled on French departmental roads, this latest series presented at Manifesto is an implacable and omnipresent visual statement : many closed and abandoned bars and cafés haunt the roadside. A decrepit sign as a reminder of a bygone era. Moved by the silence and the loneliness emanating from these places, the exact opposite of their initial vocation, Christophe tries to keep a trace, frontal, before destruction.