Patrick Zélis and Pauline Marzanasco turn the ordinary into poetic sceneries. The former is fascinated by the urban world and the latter dives into an aquatic universe. These are our readers picks #306.
Patrick Zélis
Born in 1983 in Brussels, Patrick Zélis fell in love with photography around 10 years ago. Since then, he has not stopped capturing the urban world with a sharp eye. “I particularly like street photography and graphic compositions. I am interested in lines, forms and colours which, combined, create my subject. I look for light and shadow play. Adding one of several characters disrupts this sense of tranquility and adds a sense of loneliness, or a bit of humour”, he explains. Inspired by Cartier-Bresson’s “decisive moment”, the photographer turns his gaze towards the ordinary, aspiring to turn it into quirky or poetic sceneries. “This great photographer used to say: of all the means of expression, photography is the only one fixing a precise moment. We play with disappearing things, and, when they have disappeared, it is impossible to have them live again”, Patrick Zélis says.
© Patrick Zélis
Pauline Marzanasco
“When I was ten, my parents offered me my first camera. It was a film camera that could go underwater. It all started from there: pictures of my sister and I in our pyjamas playing in the swimming pool, my girlfriends’ tan lines, and many failed pictures”
, Pauline Marzanasco remembers. The 29-year-old artist now follows an intuitive approach, letting her encounters guide her. Inspired by her studies in sociology, she observes and soaks up the scene before pressing the shutter release. Lectoure reconnects with her first photographic experience. “This is my second series on exploration underwater. Anonymous bodies in action telling a story are what interest me in this aquatic research”, she tells us. In this swimming pool from Gers, shot in black and white, bathing suits balloon up, and bodies seem to fly. The sun burns the skins and the joyful screams of children echo. “This project is a tribute to a deconfined summer, to a newfound freedom, to the carefreeness of the start of the school year”, the artist says.
© Pauline Marzanasco
Cover picture: © Pauline Marzanasco
