Blog flash007 de Bruno Baltzer

My Father’s Glory (La gloire de mon père). Photographic study (2009 – continuing) 16 C-prints 90×120 cm plus finishing.

© brunobaltzer 2009

When I truly begin to think about this project, my personal motivations are twofold: to finally establish an intimate dialogue with my father and to retain the images of that which is on the point of disappearing. Time forever irreversible, diseases which impair mental ability and shatter relationships, and oblivion which stalks me all make me ask myself two questions: What is he for me? Who am I?

I travel from Luxembourg towards the south on 8 June 2009. It is during the eight hours of driving which lead me towards Vaison-la-romaine that I establish the plan for the photographic sessions to come. Upon my arrival, the fruit of a preparatory effort pursued for more than two years to come closer to my father seems ripe. It is during the first meal that I announce to my parents my intention of photographing my father each day during the entire length of my visit. The date of my departure is not revealed. I had imagined that my father would be moved by this proposal and it is very seriously and confidentially that he accepts it. My mother will not take part in the work. I believe that she understood that it was between him and me. We commence the photographic sessions. I want to understand what he suffers from. I know that I would like to be more present now. To begin with there is the place, the swimming pool of a vacation home in Provence, the swimming pool of a family house located in Provence. This swimming pool resonates in my mind like the memories of Marcel Pagnol in “My Father’s Glory” which I respectfully borrow as the title for the series. Nearly forty years ago, this swimming pool, undoubtedly the first built by a private individual in the region, exercised a powerful attraction on the children and their entourage. It soon becomes a ritual, much like daily hygiene ritual, a process of daily encounters renewed during sixteen days, each morning at 9 o’clock at the bottom of the pool. We are near the summer solstice. Already at this time of day the sun inflicts strong contrasts upon the surroundings without however becoming overwhelming. It is my father who selects his clothing. I ask him to not wear anything special. I want him to be natural. Holding the camera at arm’s length, it seems to me that I am in more intimate contact with my father. The camera is a Mamiya 645, the film Fujicolor pro 800Z. This final choice is motivated by the high aperture necessary to take hand held pictures without camera shake. During the first day, 7 different shots are established, some of which have been pre-conceived and others which are improvised as part of our improbable face to face encounter. The locations are then marked on the ground.

• Series 01: 80 mm, chest. The first shot is superimposed on the last shot of the day before. This series presents a double portrait where time and the minute changes in attitude on the part both of the model and of the photographer merge.
• Series 02: 80 mm, portrait standing pressed against the wall of the swimming pool, this one vanishing. This position reminds him of the one that his cousin Maurice Segretain, a young member of the resistance, must have taken as he was executed by firing squad on Mont Valérien in 1944.

• Series 03: 45 mm, portrait standing. My father places himself with his back to the camera in one of the four corners of the swimming pool. This position reminds him of that of a pupil told to stand in the corner.

• Series 04: 45 mm, portrait standing. My father places himself in the middle of the swimming pool with his back to the south. This position liberates him. He looks around and finds there a contemplative peace.
• Series 05: 45 mm, three quarter shot, repositioned in 02, chest. Tilted, his hat hides his face. This improvised position serving as a moment of relaxation during the middle of the session is aesthetic. It emphasizes the accessory which protects the skin of the face, ultra sensible to UV, while at the same time revealing a vulnerability.
• Series 06: 45 mm, also repositioned in 02, chest. Back to the wall, it is an expression of our desire for a close and open relationship.
• Series 07: 45 mm, also repositioned in 02, portrait standing legs spread. Still back to the wall, the décor of the swimming pool reappears.

Each day proceeds as part of a routine. The change of light is virtually imperceptible. Only the clothes indicate a certain movement. On the thirteenth day, the water begins to rise until on the sixteenth it is capable of submerging my father. This thirteenth session reveals in a dreadful way the tiny changes in the décor. During the course of each day, the swimming pool was washed, restored, and put back to work for the onset of summer in the expectation of its unchanging choreography much like a relationship which we carefully tend. It was the first time that my father was unable on his own to take care of all of the preparations necessary to put the swimming pool back to work. From a wall, each session was videotaped as a fixed shot, providing details concerning the sweeping of our bodies in this closed space while adding both sound and words to the portraits. This session of studies, bringing to mind a Muybridge photographic series, bears witness to a “mental locomotion” of the delicate route towards rekindling the link between a son and his father while at the same time revealing the true nature of the father’s disease, Alzheimer’s. This series, bringing to mind an abbreviated Roman Opalka auto portrait, evokes the idea of infinity, the infinite in the finite of the process of time during which the photographed communicates to the photographer.

This voyage leads me to an unexpected and moving position, that of a son, photographer, family biographer whose recording/protecting machines will allow him to confront and to come to terms with the days as they unfold.

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