The autumn leaves
The other day, right in the middle of a meal, the idea came to me to collect some fallen leaves and photograph them. A simple gesture, seemingly out of nowhere. A rather peculiar idea, perhaps, to gather dead leaves and turn them into a photographic project.
You might wonder why no one had thought of it before, given how obvious the idea seems. I know some of you may also be wondering what the point is. After all, they're just dead leaves. But to those of you thinking that: “Just wait until you see the results further down.”
In any case, it is a small reminder, if one were needed, that creativity can strike without warning. It is an impulse, an intuition that, for me, often takes the form of a “why not?”, something I decide to follow without necessarily knowing where it will lead.
So, almost as soon as the idea had taken shape, I found myself at Père Lachaise Cemetery, gathering a few specimens of leaves. And as you can see in the photograph below, it is a rather suitable place for such a collection.
In short, studio photography is quite far removed from my usual photographic practice. I leave landscape and street photography behind to enter a much more controlled space, one where I know I am not necessarily expected.
Memento Mori
I often photograph dead flowers, and there may be something slightly romantic, even gothic, about it. A fascination with things that have lost their original purpose, with forms that remain after life has left them. Photographing them may be a way of searching for beauty that no longer lies in their bloom, but in the traces of their disappearance.
In any case, this is a recurring theme in my work. If you follow my photography, you will probably have noticed a certain melancholic quality running through it.
Dead leaves are surprisingly sculptural subjects. Their textures, folds and contours offer endless possibilities. Depending on the angle of the light, certain curves emerge while others disappear. I found myself experimenting with slight changes in angle, tilting each leaf by a few degrees to emphasise one surface or another, one curve rather than the next. Much like sculpting a body with softboxes during a portrait shoot.
Thinking about the masters
As I was working, I found myself thinking of Edward Weston's peppers and Karl Blossfeldt's botanical studies. Not because I was trying to replicate their work, but because their photographs share an ability to transform a familiar object or a plant form we think we know into something that could almost be an architectural structure or a landscape.
And yet, of all the shapes and varieties of leaves I collected, the ones that captivated me most were not the curled-up ones, but those with gaps. Those with holes.
They tell a story of erosion, but also of the fate of these leaves. They spent the warmer months on the tree, fulfilling their purpose, before being sacrificed with the arrival of the cold. Once fallen to the ground, they begin a final existence.
To photograph them now is to intervene in that interval between their fall and their eventual disappearance. It is to grant them a form of permanence, much like the way a final portrait was once made of the deceased.
A typological work
Finally, the way I photograph the leaves is also part of this idea of a final portrait. Each leaf is isolated against a white background, lit using the same setup and, more often than not, placed at the centre of the frame. I repeat the same approach, almost scientific in nature, drawing on the conventions of specimen photography.
But behind this rigour of method, there is also something more intimate. As though each leaf were being presented one last time before disappearing. Not simply to document a species or a botanical form, but to give it the attention one would give to a portrait.