Dandy Vagabonds
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“I believe in people and stories. Stories help people to relate to each other. My work has always been to conceive ‘invisible architectures’ for people to create, collect, and interact around stories and shared concerns.”

Claudine Boeglin, creative director & curator
Visual Playlist
Mentoring in Photography


I had the role of mentor & curator in photography and visual grammar at the London-based research agency Revealing Reality between 2016-2019.

– To place photography as a visual alphabet, a tool and a skillset in place-based research.

– To curate the incoming material into stories and help researchers practice photography with an observational and curatorial eye.

– To curate and repurpose existing material looking for trans-cultural patterns in human behaviours and housing settings across projects.

For my future missions, I aim to meet two challenges:

– To direct visual reporting on location in order to bring back thoroughly scripted content.

– To research and conceive visual displays where photography, graphics and UX merge on digital and mobile platforms, and become the core report.


module #1
SPACE, PEOPLE, OBJECTS

This kickstarter module was intended for researchers beginning on photography in fieldwork. The presentation focuses on wide, medium and close-up angles; and their distinguished roles. It defines the position of the photographer with a statement of neutrality – in the case of a wider context, or as a curator of significative clues; for close-ups for instance.


module #2
THE TOWN, THE STREET, THE HOUSE

This concise module is an appetiser and point of entrance into the work of three major American photographers who covered the 50s – 80s. Joel Sternfeld, Stephen Shore, and William Eggleton worked in colour opposing the traditional dogma of documentary photography meant to use black and white. Their work illustrates everyday life or what Paul Graham coined ‘banal photography’. Their work forms an archive of unprecedented insight into the American suburbia where cigarettes, television and cars were what coffee, mobiles and bikes are today.


module #3
PORTRAITS PRESERVING ANONYMITY

This assignment was requested when a series of missions required to preserve people’s anonymity in reporting. Respondents victim of domestic violence, mental health patients and people with debts for instance were to be documented faceless. The photographer therefore had to think of creative strategies that went beyond chopping heads out of the frame.


module #4
VERTICAL MEDITATIONS

Vertical Meditations was summer assignment to challenge composition in portrait format vs. landscape; and the motivations behind both choices. It followed a workshop focusing on wide angle. Thinking photography as vertical is a mindset. It requires to define clear protagonists with a minimalist aesthetic.


module #5
THINKING PHOTOGRAPHY IN LAYERS

A complex viewpoint, Thinking Photography in Layers calls on the essence of photography built around depth of field. It establishes film as a flow and photography as a stage. Composite and therefore interchangeable, photography tells a different story in each new curation. Photography freezes a moment to help the viewer deeply reflect on the content in the frame. A construct reality emerges; subjective by design. Through mostly Magnum photographers’ practice, this course invites to think and conceptualise a scene prior to take the picture.


module #6
CHIARO OSCURO

Chiaro Oscuro is the first opus of a series of modules linking photography to direct influences in painting, sculptures and live arts. The act of taking pictures is after all the postmodern art form by excellence. It combines a mechanical recording of an event with an author’s point of view. As such, each photograph embues an individual imprint. Each image contains traces of one’s mental kaleidoscope formed by cultural representations and personal memories.


module #7
PHOTOJOURNALISM | SEVEN TIPS BY REUTERS PHOTOGRAPHER DAMIR SAGOLJ

In 2014, photojournalist Damir Sagolj was briefly visiting Thomson Reuters in Canary Wharf. I had a multimedia workshop to wrap in the following week and asked him to gently share tips on how best to build news photography. His secret? Research, preparation and 'being invisible'.

© Dandy Vagabonds 2019