Christophe Debelmas

I was born in 1964 in the Grenoble region, at the gateway to the Alps. My higher education and professional career took me to Toulouse, Reims and finally the Paris region. There I have been working for companies in various sectors. I also had ten years on my own as an independent consultant.
As a high school and then a university student, I did a lot of drawing and watercolour painting. Then, after taking photographs for a long time for the sole pleasure of keeping and sharing memories, I decided one day, for various reasons, to acquire a “serious” camera, i.e. a digital SLR. That was in 2006. With it, I finally found a tool to serve the strong need to create that I had been silencing for many years. I’m still an amateur photographer, but today I devote all the time my professional activities and my family leave me to photography.

In my photographic approach, the image produced at the end of the process is more important than the piece of reality that was in front of me when I captured it. I seek to give autonomy to the image. By escaping from documentary, I’m not imposing any vision nor trying to convey any message. The viewers are free to create their own poetics, their own way of approaching the image, their own reaction to it. They can remain within the realm of pure aesthetic experience. But if they accept to give themselves the time to take their time, they can also let themselves be taken into imaginary worlds or into the heart of their own unconscious. In this case, the resulting emotion – whatever it may be – will be all the stronger for being totally their own.
Photography is also a way of escaping from my everyday life. Moments of creation are moments of solitude, when you no longer hear the noises of the outside world. At the same time, I like to share what I create with others, to confront myself with others and their reactions. Beyond recognition, photography is also a way of revealing to others a part of who I really am, of talking about myself without saying a word