Sete. Solar and Mineral.
Bertrand Meunier has taken to heart the difficult task of portraying a town, and in so doing he reminds us of one of photography's essential truths. Whoever talks about - the portrait of a town - is talking about a simple portrait, thus indicating obvious subjectivity in the result. But something subjective that can provoke surprise is not necessarily untrue, it is merely the truth of a single moment - a moment we would never have noticed if it had not been caught on photo, a moment gone forever - except it is now captured on the grain of the film. Photographically, there is something deeply traditional in this portrait of Sete today, something irreplaceable that is perhaps in the process of vanishing forever; the silver quality gives softness and firmness to the images, emphasizing strangeness and familiarity, things that are obvious and things that are mere illusions. Rather like when you go to the seaside in winter and its cold, the sun is shining directly onto the little waves and there is a whole world there being reconstructed in the shards of light, with the shadow of white birds dancing at your feet like the negative of reality.
AN EXTRACT FROM THE PREFACE BY CHRISTIAN CAUJOLLE. TRANSLATED BY DELIA MORRIS
