Readers picks #205

Goledzinowski

Sylvain Mignot, aka Goledzinowski, always travel with his camera. Last summer, he went to South East Asia to document new Chinese tourism. In Mer de Chine (China Sea, ed.), he photographed “the joys of the first time by the seaside”. Fascinated by this first swim, he tells us: “They’re all wearing a flotation arsenal. I was touched, and moved at the same time, by those scenes capturing the discovery of the sea and how being in a group and so close to the tour operators helped them overtaking their fears”.

For those first holidays, trousers and Lycra teeshirts with embedded lifebelts looked mandatory. “Every day, before going into the water, I observed a parade of young girls, dressed with dresses and hats. Their must-have accessory? Cellphones, carefully placed in a waterproof cover. I witnessed so many contradictory yet fascinating scenes”, he explains.

© Goledzinowski

Laurent Muschel

Laurnet Muschel started his work in Conakry (Guinea) and then travelled to discover the hair salons of Brussels, Addis Ababa, and Shire (Ethiopia), Abidjan and Grand-Bassam (Côte d’Ivoire), Accra (Ghana) and Banjul (Gambia). He kept going and went to other tropical zones : Dhaka (Bangladesh), Havana (Cuba) and Jericoacoara (Brazil). “An itinerary filled with shortcuts and extensions”, the Belgium based photographer adds.

“In Africa and Latin America, the hair-dressers cut, shave and shape the hair, but they also ‘build’ them, like architects. The hair saloons from the tropics are very diverse, though, from street barber-shops to chic salons. There is no normalised practice, but all those salons share the same charm: being a place where people can meet and time stands still”. A text written by Rolf Sachsse, to discover next to Laurent’s pictures in his book Tropicalhairsalons.

© Laurent Muschel