SeriesTravel by proxy – The photographer of Angevin origin stays and returns year after year in a country of choice. For twelve years, he has traveled Ghana, because he “wanted air, light and sensuality to invade” his images.
His images are at odds with the clichés of “Instagramable” tourism. Far from the egotistical staging against a background of postcards, they are from the old world, when travel allowed you to forget yourself a little while meeting others. Moreover, the photographer Denis Dailleux, 62, still prefers silver film. No “must-see places”, it is above all through “ordinary” people that he grasps a country.
How Richard Avedon had made a grandiose journey of his portraits of workers and farmers In the American West, Denis Dailleux has long shown another Egypt, far from the pyramids and the gold of the Pharaohs, but beautiful from the nobility of the humblest. For twelve years, it is Ghana that he travels as follows: “I wanted to get out of the confined universe – both by the interior of the place and the modesty of the people – of my Egyptian photos. I wanted air, light and sensuality to invade my images. “
To travel for him is not to accumulate visas on the passport but to stay and return from year to year in a country of choice. The first photos will tell if the current is flowing. Or not. “In Brazil, it was a disaster, I only took bad pictures there”, he remembers.
At first, Accra, the Ghanaian capital, seemed to have the same fate: “ I wandered alone in avenues that were too wide, modern architecture seemed to me without character. I made friends, but my photos were poor. ” He walked through the huge Makola market, where everything is sold, from vegetables to kente, the traditional fabric made of cotton and silk woven in geometric patterns: “ It’s beautiful, but I did not trigger, for fear of the picturesque. “
Then, he ventured out to sea and the old district of Jamestown, at the foot of the red and white lighthouse. To the narrow strip of land where the fishermen live: “There, it was a dazzling: the sun hit the colored canoes, the men played chess in the shade …” He walked in the company of his friend and assistant Joseph Adamako in the narrow alleys, between the makeshift huts painted in yellow, blue, pink or pistachio green. It came back day by day, ended up being familiar: “I was the only White, the Westerner, in this popular suburb, yet nobody made me feel it, except the children but it was by play…”
The late afternoons of May had his preference for “The sublime transparency of light”. The elegant wait of the fish sellers, the muscular bodies of the fishermen, the muslin of the nets and the flags fluttering in the wind have composed almost classic paintings. But, the following year, part of the informal quarter had been razed: “Ghana discovered oil, people are getting richer, this place near the sea interests promoters and speculation”, summarizes Denis Dailleux, fatalist.
You have 54.3% of this article to read. The rest is for subscribers only.