What do Valentine Jamis and Claire Quiroule, our readers picks #314, have in common? The use of analog photography. The first one documents the daily life of a home-schooled family, and the second captures atmospheres as beautiful as they are strange.
Valentine Jamis
Valentine Jamis, 25 years old, discovered photography during her teenage years in the countryside, in the Vosges. She then moved to Brussels, where she completed a bachelor’s degree at the École supérieure des Arts de l’image, Le Septante-Cinq. Between 2016 and 2017, she returned to her native region to write the first chapter of Kids, a visual story inspired by family. “Kids is the story of siblings who are home-schooled. Not being very academic, I was intrigued by home schooling as an alternative. So I followed three children from a large family for a year,” she explains. Taken with film, her images tell the story of these protagonists as they evolve into teenagers. “I was fascinated by their curiosity, their maturity and their growing ease with me and the camera. I was able to capture real moments of life,” says the photographer. A collection of intimate and spontaneous images from which escape – between some children’s laughter – reflections inspired by an alternative way of life.
© Valentine Jamis
Claire Quiroule
“My first contact with photography dates back to my childhood, when I hung out in the photo club my father used to go to. I was fascinated this work occurring behind closed doors, the sense of being out of time, the images that appeared, the smells… The shooting part, however, completely went over my head”
, recalls Claire Quiroule. The 29-year-old artist eventually fell in love with photography twenty years later, when she discovered that her mother had kept the camera of her deceased father. Specialising in film, she photographs “moments, more than subjects or themes”. “I love those moments when my brain completely disconnects in a sensation of perfection of the moment,” she continues. Influenced by the Do It Yourself culture and collage, the author captures textures, emotions, “atmospheres that are sometimes strange, raw, or contemplative and melancholic”. Working with outdated film, she lets chance guide her as she develops and scans her works “with much approximation”. A collection of images as raw as they are delicate.
© Claire Quiroule
Cover picture : © Valentine Jamis
