Author Description

Sixty Seconds; Portraits 1992-2011A portrait is not a photo of a woman or a man. It is something else. Something more. The extra is the photographer. The one who leads this strange, unusual ritual, that of the portrait celebration. A portrait is an encounter between the one who makes the photo and the one who poses. In the end, it is not the image of this woman or man that appears, but the image of the relationship that arose between one world, the photographer's, in the shadows, and another world, the sitter's, in the light. The framing, the moment, the light, the technical equipment of cameras and films, all are selected by the photographer. And directing the actor is, here again, the photographer's responsibility. Jérôme De Perlinghi, through the festivals of Deauville, Montreal and elsewhere, the backstage area of the Cinematek in Belgium, his encounters with cinema, has been able to impose, with great kindness and infinite determination, his world on those who were willing to spend a few minutes with him - or to be more precise, in front of him, between his canvas, his spotlight and his Yashica 6X6. He was able to seduce them with his honesty and a certain pugnacity, but without ever attempting to flatter or deceive them. With him, each sitter knew where they were going, accepted to play this game, this power struggle, and forget their image to build with Jérôme another image: unique, different and free.Laurent Abadjian