Jean-Louis Marçot

"The sensation of immense waiting, or of recollection, of a moment of inactivity in the
vertiginous movement of the centuries, of a reflection, of a look of mourning thrown on
the past, on everything before the sun, the beings, the races or the religions ". Pierre Loti,
Journal, Hendaye, November 22, 1892

Jean-Louis Marçot paid a close visit to Pierre Loti's work in the Basque Country
(1891-1923). Recognizing his steps in those of the writer, he built a singular relationship
with the situations that the author of Ramuntcho described in numerous texts dedicated to
his adopted country - a report capable of stopping time -, thus the concept
of "soul" emerges. "Before our eyes, a soul emerges from the earth, from the trees, from a thousand things "
Loti notes in his personal diary from the terrace of his house contemplating the reflection in the
Bidasoa.

Jean-Louis Marçot tried to capture this "soul" (or this illusion) on the film of his
Detective, a rudimentary device used at the time when Loti was trying to
photograph himself. "To make photography based on recollection" he explains, is to use the
observation and the camera with the concern to record such a parcel of the visible that
will contain more invisible than visible, is to operate in slowness, indifferent to the details, to the
effects, is to make the" focus "first on its interiority, is to renounce to" take "an image
to let it be deposited on the sensitive surface. "
Apparatus used: Detective, model Box Gap 1952 6x9 - Kodak 120mm Portra reel and
TriX --pigment printing from scanned negatives with minimal post-treatment
.

Initiated in the photographic technique in 1975, Jean-Louis Marçot has never stopped
linking photography to his various research projects on "the forms of
time", the "here and now" or his Algerian origins. He has also shared his practice with
other photographers, co-founder of the critical workshop CRISIRIS in Rennes on the theme: "Image de
crise/ Crise de l'image", with Jean-Paul Soujol in Provence exploring the Mont Ventoux,
with Jacky Brignier in the Cévennes inspecting the industrial and mining ruins of
Bessèges.... These works and collaborations have given rise, under his name
or Pseudonym, to portfolios, exhibitions and books.

He switched to digital with the appearance of the compact (Lumix) and began to chronicle
of his daily life from 2005 to 2011: photographs throughout the days 2007 (free.fr)
then equipped himself with more voluminous and advanced devices of the Sony Alpha 7 range.
Digital technology has not yet brought him all the satisfactions of analog, both
in production and processing.