Dear English-speaking readers, this page is an automatic translation made from a post originally written in French. My apologies for any strange sentences and funny mistakes that may have been generated during the process. If you are reading French, click on the French flag below to access the original and correct text:
I like the way he looks at the world. I like his photographic work. Marie-Ange Ostré is a globe-trotter and diver, like me. She has just published her first book and it's a pleasure to rediscover her images in this way.
Another look
From Greenland to the Marquesas Islands, from Brazil to Namibia, from the Indonesian rice fields to the Bahamas lagoons, the photographer-blogger and globetrotter Marie-Ange Ostré takes us on incredible trips. And her sincere enthusiasm to share them, to tell them, to give us to see, through her eyes, these distant horizons, touches me a lot.
Taking pictures has become commonplace, accessible to all, with the progress of digital technology. But taking pictures is different.
It is to look at the world, to have a point of view. And then, eventually, to dare to confront it, to submit it to other views.
"For years, I have not traveled without my camera; it is my alter ego, my road book, my accomplice and my reminder sometimes."
Marie-Ange's introductory words sum up the philosophy of this book. I can imagine what it must have cost her to sort and select the photographs she wanted to bring together in her first book. The texts that accompany them have the grace to remain short, to let the image speak.
Nature and encounters
Page after page, it is first of all a tribute to the splendor of nature, whether it is beach, desert, geyser or jungle. Landscapes conducive to escape, to dream, to wonder.
And then there are the looks and the faces crossed in these distant latitudes. Men and women who have transformed the journey into an encounter.
So far, so close... I like this "look at the planet" which goes beyond the easy aestheticism of exotic images. This glance posed with frankness and respect on the other.
No doubt my perception is a bit biased: I read Marie-Ange's blog, A world elsewhereI've been a photographer for so long that I know the history of almost every one of these photographs! This familiarity explains why I have so much pleasure in admiring them again on paper (it's a change from the screen).
Nevertheless. We share a little the raw happiness that the photographer had to realize her images, I find... I have the impression to perceive the sensations which had to cross her at the time to release. The shock, the curiosity, the emotion. The shyness, too, sometimes.
The whole gives off a beautiful serenity, something soothing, which makes you want to travel the world. To take an optimistic look at the planet. And this, in spite of the author's warning messages, which remind us between two chapters of the threats which weigh on our Earth.
The beautiful adventure of this book, Marie-Ange Ostré has already told it on her blog. I invite you, via the links below, to follow her through her own words, she confides her joy as much as her doubts...
→ His book: A Look at the Planet