It was a gamble! Many photographers feel tied to their territory. They like to photograph their quotidian, their surroundings, or the city, or even the region where they live, but don’t like to venture further. So, to make them travel, leave their environment for another they don’t know anything about – Deauville, in this case – is a crazy gamble, the kind of risk that we love to take; and a successful one, as you will now discover.
Gunnar Smoliansky left Sweden for his first real commissioned work at 80 years of age! Although Kishin Shinoyama has explored many different countries, he remains anchored in the Japanese tradition; he came with two models from the Land of the Rising Sun. Terri Weifenbach left the American Nature behind to explore much smaller, yet just as flaring spaces: Deauville’s gardens. Zhuang Jay journeyed from his native and busy China for the Asian Cinema Festival.
In a different vein, Grégoire Alexandre briefly traded the cozy atmosphere of the photo studio for the beach and its bad weather. Audrey Corregan and Erik Haberfeld also left their studio – only to reconstitute a temporary one in the hallway of a villa for the purpose of investigating, as would private detectives (or archeologists,) the City’s culinary specialty.
Others find in the elsewhere the primary source of their work. Harry Gruyaert envisions a place solely through its color palette; and Lucie & Simon, fascinated by Fantasy, search for the mysteries of commonly frequented venues. As for Lore Stessel, the 2012 recipient of the Prize Louis Roederer for her intimate rendering of the City, this year, she decided to focus on its borders, as a line in the landscape.
Once again, an original promenade in Deauville through the eyes of eleven new artists. Enjoy the Festival and pleasant reading!

Patrick Remy
Artistic director