My approaoch

The sense of my work is to reveal the essential, never to illustrate. My photos depend uniquely on the meeting and my light. I work in the movement; I don’t have a viewfinder. There is no intermediate between my eyes and the subject. I am my own eyepiece. How can we take a photo by closing one eye and peeking through a keyhole? For me, a camera is not a gun with a viewfinder. Being present, to look directly is a way to escape voyeurism.

I work in 60 mm x 60 mm. I develop all film myself and make copies of everything for working prints. Then, selecting some one of thirty or forty prints, I put together the series to be worked on. This is the beginning of a long process. One print, with tests and the drawing and making of masks, takes a minimum of 12 hours.

Each of my enlargements, up to 1,30 x 1,50 m, is unique. They are not unique because I make no copies but because of the way I work. For every photo I draw a series of masks and experiment with exposure times. One print can be similar to another but it cannot be identical, hence its uniqueness. My work is closer to the plastic arts than to photography. I must always find that black that illuminates, and gives a sense to the drama. For me, light is the act that brings you to the deepest black.

Touhami Ennadre