“Their life can be destroyed every week for sure but they stay here because the earth is geared for their culture and this is simply they home,” says Philippe Echaroux about the people he photographed near the Bromo volcano. “I don’t go there to try to gain their trust, I am just a human going to meet other human and together we will create maybe Art, or just share point of view and experiences. I see this in a simple and deeply human way and it always worked.” This method is far unlike what so many other documentary photographers do.
All images by Philippe Echaroux. Used with permission. For more, check out his Instagram.
Most others that we’ve talked to here at the Phoblographer often have conversations with the people without their cameras around, and then work to build trust and relationships. Once that gets to a certain point, then the cameras come out. But perhaps this is a different. “Thoses portraits has been shoot during a documentary for french TV, the concept is to follow me discovering some cultures,” he tells us. And so things are different here. However, appealing to humanity is also a fascinating approach when you’re in a bind for time.
“My goal is to shoot people in a really straight foward way, with time I learned that the simpler is the better at least for me.”
I see portrait as the result of a meeting with people. The portrait you see is the witness of this moment if we had shot it later it would certainly be different, the portrait is not perfect, it’s not made to be, it just is and we can share it with you today.
Philippe got into photography when he was bored in 2008. So he bought a bridge camera and got into photography while walking around his home. He describes it today more as a good old friend than a lover.
He shoots on Nikon cameras and uses a 50mm and 135mm lens. But he tells us that he’s also not a gear guy. In fact, he thinks that AI is a tech wave. “…if you don’t have a surfboard or don’t know how to surf you’ll for sure finish to be rolled by the waves, but if you decide to learn to surf you ll be able to go wherever you want on the water,” he tells us. “You can decide to not move in the water safely or to surf.” Despite this, he sees scary things with AI but believes that the big and important things will still be made by humans.
AUTHENTICITY STATEMENT
The Phoblographer works with human photographers to verify that they’ve actually created their work through shoots. These are done by providing us assets such as BTS captures, screenshots of post-production, extra photos from the shoot, etc. We do this to help our readers realize that this is authentically human work. Here’s what this photographer provided for us.