SÈTE #23

Dear Christian,
Séte really got me and treats me warmly. I feel accepted and part of whatever means being part of something. I give empathy, I receive empathy. I work hard but it comes naturally, I don’t have to do special efforts. Even the bad days are interesting on different layers of feelings and communication with the others and myself. My wild cat spirit functions well
here. A roller coaster, intense and full of energy, at times intimate and emotional, other more distant but still worthexperiencing.
Of course working on such compressed time causes me a lot of stress, for what I want to do I feel I have a guillotine on my head even though I knew it from the beginning. It is what it is, anxiety yes but no complaints. I like the direction, a clear idea of the structure of the work is taking shape and it feels solid and strong. Then there will be the reality of the
pictures, and I’m afraid the usual feeling of failure. But now what is important is that I’m totally absorbed so I will come out with a lot of material but I’m too into it to choose well - I need distance to make a good selection - and I really hope I
will not fucked it up because of the rush for the book and the exhibition made in such a short time.

Basically, I’m working on three chapters.

I started going to the Cimitiere Marin almost every morning to photograph with a macro lens all the pictures on each grave. The cemetery is very interesting because, in addition to its beautiful view and geography, it is a very photographic one. The amount of pictures on the graves is incredible. At first my idea was to photograph them all, I wanted to try not to select faces, to accept them all without choosing. I spent one hour or two there every early morning for at least two weeks. Then I had a temporary problem with the permission and also a couple of families did not want their ancestors photographed by a stranger. I’m sure that the dead have nothing against me photographing them, but I had to slightly change plan. Fair enough, the principle still applies. I had to slow down, however I have already photographed about 3000 pictures. Circumstances have chosen for me but I want to keep the idea of an indistinct selection for the exhibition.
I’d like to create a long wall with hundreds of small prints. From a distance an abstract cloud of small images close to each other that become more visible when you get closer: a single multitude.

The second chapter will consist of about 10/15 water-view landscapes. I’m going to do them next week. I want to photograph them all together and work at a different speed, much slower. I’d like to take at least 3 whole days just for these landscapes. I’m getting more and more familiar with the territory and I hope this will help me find the spots where I eventually want to set up the camera. I will shoot this part with a large format 4x5. I'm hoping for a storm, but it's unlikely.

Then the third chapter, the most messed up. I was definitely not in the mood to go around Séte looking for the eccentric and shoot randomly 'my way’ which thank God I don’t know and don’t want to know what it is. I go for what I feel with no other concern than to listen carefully to my inner voice, as usual. Every time it tells me something new in relation to the specific experience and I love that because it makes me alert, insecure and never confident… but it also takes away a lot of energy.
I'm lucky i found a key. I started by asking some friends I have here and Gilles and Valerie to introduce me to someone important or interesting to them who would allow me to portray them at home. Then on the second night I had one of those rare magical moments when everything works gracefully and I met several interesting people with whom I came into contact. The following days I’ve started photographing them at home. Then I asked each of them to introduce me to someone else to photograph, and it has been going on and on ever since. I entered this chain of people all connected in some ways, even if not always directly. It is spreading like wildfire. Again, I try not to select but sometimes I push a little
harder to go in certain direction. I try to cover the widest range of possibilities, of environments, of social conditions. I think Jim Goldberg’s Rich & Poor had an impact on me since I started thinking about what to do in this residency. By now I’ve photographed about 60 different realities in interiors (families, half families, couples, friends, singles…) but I’ll go on.

Then there’s everything I shoot in the streets, between one portrait and another.

I’ve also photographed in color the fisherman’s house where I’m staying. It's Remy and Mariange's house and it's a place where I immediately felt at home, perhaps also because by total chance it's the same house I happened to live in in Séte when I was first there years ago. When Gilles took me there as soon as I arrived, it seemed like a very good sign.

Letter from Lorenzo Castore to Christian Caujolle