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« My Hyperphotos are the realization of a longtime dream that would never have been
possible without digital technology : to see at the same time the all-over view as well as the
intimate one, to stop time and be able to examine all the details of the fixed image. » says
the artist.
Jean-François Rauzier first tried to create his immense visions by using ultra-wide-angle
lenses. But the deformaiton and amplification of the perspective that they caused did not
work for his idea of creating a vast image into which one can become lost in. “I wanted to
re-constittue what I see when turning my head 180°, 270°, and even 360°, without having the
impression of going thruough a lens and it’s limits. In any case, even with a “fish-eye”, I
couldn’t go more than 180°. And my ambition was to control the deformation without
creating a noticeable effect.”
He then tried panoramic cameras: the lens mounted on a rotating pole activated by a time-
mechanism, sweeping the field and projecting the image on a convex film. The results were
surprising and magnificent, but this technique also had it’s limits: all of the straight lines
parallel to the horizons became curved.
“I began taking a succession of images from right to left, then putting them together with
Photoshop in order to obtain a panoramic image.” But obtaining very thin horizontal images
wasn’t sufficient. He decided to take in the vertical aspect in his assembling of the image
and came across a cartography problem: how to project on a flat photographe the quarter
shpere of a landscape covering 180° horizontally and 75° vertically.
“I tried very rapid assembling software (Stitcher de Realviz, for example), but flat projection
creates a wide-angle deformation, changing the quality of the image, and speric projection
reproduces the panoramique effect with its curves.”
In the end he decides on a much longer but more controllable process: assembling the
images with Photoshop deforming them as little as possible. But then there were holes...
“Imagine that the photos are stones of a domed ceiling that must be laid out on a flat surface.
It becomes a triangle: several stones at the base, then less and less on each level going up,
ending up with only one at the top: the keystone. What I wanted to obtain was a rectangle.”
In order to obtain a rectangle, he must place his clichés in the upper levels with spaces
between them, then filling in the holes. So he photographes, cuts out and adjusts a large
quantity of details to recreate the missing peices of the puzzle. Still, it’s not at all synthetic
images – all the elements are actual photos!
PERFECT DEFINITION
“No lens can give the perfect sharpness in one photo, from as close as 12 inches up to
infinity, that I can achieve by assempling 200 photos. I wanted total definition: such as on a
geography map or a botanical or entomology board, where every plant or animal is specified
and in it’s place.”
In order to obtain such a result, Jean-Francois Rauzier tirelessly photographes every inch of
a landscape with a telephoto lens, shooting at the time of the day that gives optimal light. By
shooting in horizontal bands and verifying the focus at each level, all over perfect definition
is finally achieved.
“At the computer screen, cloning, assemling, redesigning hundred of tree trunks, branches,
leaves... I have the impresson of working on a giant puzzle. I escape into a strange
exlporation of details that were unnoticed while shooting: a spider on a web in the ferns in
the undergrowth, airplanes in the sky invisible to the naked eye, blades of grass, spikes of
wheat so variable that the diversity surprises me. It becomes a communion with nature,
prospicious to meditation, like an engraving or a sculpture. Time becomes an ally...”
Gabriel Bridge, for instance, is the result of three hours of shooting at night: 160 clichés
taken blindly with one minute for each one! “Many details became apparent afterwards, the
magic of the result, the importance of hasard... The cat was actually present that night, but
because the shooting time was so long, I had to photograph it seperately and reincorporate
it in the final image.”
To become totally involved in the landscape and allow it’s inner image to come through,
Jean-Francois Rauzier eliminates bothersome details: houses, electrical poles, cars, traffic
signs... “To create my ideal world, I remove whatever signifies human presence in order to
give the landscape it’s original virginity. Perhaps a kind of quest for a Garden of Eden...
However, what is seen in the end is not untouched and wild, but often tamed or cultivated.
The fields fascinate me by their sage regularity, the solid and peaceful rythm they impose on
a landscape. Nuturing mother nature is controlled and domesticated. And therefore also
the dream... “
On the other hand, he replaces quite a few elements. Objects that seem to be waiting for
someone: balls, sandals, books, toys, bicycles.. In any case everything is still, frozen in
time, sometimes even worrysome, seeming like the aftermath of a catastrophe.
“In my first works, there was maybe just one object integrated in the décor: an armchair, a
wrecked car... Then I started to repeat the objets to impose a ryhthm in the décor and
especially to give it some scale, a notion of distance and depth that had a tendancy to
disappear in the empty landscapes.”
With these highly fabricated images, we are far from the candid photo and much closer to
hyperrealstic painting.
“But I still want it to be photography, or like a still shot in a movie, that is believable. I’m
careful to stay within the realm of the photo, respecting shadows, reflections, natures real
imperfections.”
To stop time... During the actual shooting, it’s not so easy. Taking 200 cliches doesn’t take
only 1/30 of a second, but more likely at least a half an hour. The tormented skies don’t
wait. Sometimes the magnificent light of the sun breaking through the clouds only lasts a
few minutes. Hardly the time to begin a series of cliches. “I try to stop time with all it’s
dimensions and all it’s possibilities.”
Now we have the matter of exposing such works. The installation as well as the
photography. Showing them in a smaller format would make them lose their interest. The
huge dimensions of these images pose many technical and practical problems: printing
machine size, mounting or framing, transporting, finding suitable exhibiting space....