Meihdi Bichon

Natural movements

The Mouvements naturelles series is the result of four years of work around the naked body through the technique of double exposure silver. It is an artistic research whose goal is to obtain an aesthetic, singular and sensual rendering that can awaken the senses and the conscience. With this series, I talk about the essential link that unites man and nature. By the analogy offered by the ghostly and dreamlike rendering of the double exposure, I show the beauty of the energy which associates two living elements.

I started by taking inspiration from the movements of nature according to the seasons. I walked around looking for natural elements to capture in macro, such as the opening of flowers, the shape of the veins of a leaf, the robustness of the bark of a tree or the drought evoked by the cactus. When shooting the natural elements that serve as inspiration for my theme, I memorize and note the characteristics of these backgrounds. Once the films are finished, rewound and marked so as to have a satisfactory juxtaposition, I move on to another step.

During this second stage, I draw on my meetings with dancers, dancers, choreographers or musicians. And it is during my personal experiences in contact dance improvisations, Yoga, Chi Gong and Martial Arts that my idea of the type of movements I am looking for is refined. I try to capture the energy of the movement of nature put in symbiosis with that of dance. This fluidity of movement, I capture it spontaneously while the model dances. While the natural backgrounds are photographed mainly in macro, meticulously, with great concentration, the dances asked me to enter more quickly into intense sensations. I chose rhythmic and hypnotic ambient music so as to enter a kind of trance, in a state where the mind no longer has a place and where spontaneity emerges.

The sensations perceived by the model act on my body and spontaneously make me press the shutter button. It took me several years to achieve a good balance between the two shots. It is not obvious, with this technique, that two photos are paired correctly to obtain a well-framed and well-lit photo. A lot of film was used before finding the shapes that allowed the subject and the background to harmonize in order to create a series that could make sense. This manual technique therefore gives me the impression that a successful photo is more valuable than if I had created this double exposure with computer editing software. Throughout my process, I leave a lot of room for intuition, patience, thoroughness, memory and surprise. The mystery offered by the overprint allows me analogy, free interpretation and an opening to luck. While I have some idea of the results I want when designing the series, it remains abstract until the film is developed. The result is the risky fruit of a mixture of control and letting go, decision-making and chance.