Untitled 34, 2018

Elias Moubarak  

printed picture mounted on cotton paperToday, thanks to technology, taking a picture at any moment has become astonishingly simple. A

large majority of people have a device with a camera in their pockets. Unfortunately, the result has

been a monstrous overconsumption of images on social networks, applications, websites etc. The kind

of images shared, desensitizes our humanity to recognize the importance of the events that define

us. Very quickly, everything is documented, archived, commented, loved, shared, discussed, but less

and less felt, before moving on to something else ...

By collecting old photos and old albums, I project myself into a different world. You might notice that

in the past, the events to be highlighted and immortalized were better chosen, often well planned,

and without excess of snaps of the same episode. Therefore, as a photographer, I admire the virtuosity

of my late colleagues who mastered a more complicated apparatus, who knew how to recognize

key moments and celebrated life differently.

My curiosity and my interest in the past are related to the value I give to the stories told to me. It

spikes an eagerness for understanding the progression of adventures and certainly feeds my imagination

and inspiration to create.

So here I am, I acquired old pictures of a man who seemed to be lovely. I call him Mr. H.

The dreamer in me decided that Mr. H is surrounded by magic, the fantastic, the improbable, or sometimes

sensational while remaining mostly in the context of the years. Mr. H was rebellious, he was part

of the resistance, a charmer, a joker always, an explorer sometimes, an avant-garde musician, the

enlightened, the prodigious, the myth, the chosen one ... and thanks to the ordinary of his original

photos, and he still remains somebody real, within reach, that anyone could talk to.

We would all like to be Mr. H.

Or at least know him.

Or having crossed him... just once... on some random street, or adventure... Otherwise, your life, how

would it look like in pictures?