Interview Fabien Seguin
Creating images has become the most important thing in my life now.
Name: Fabien Seguin
Hometown: Gap, France. I now live in Wuhan, China.
Style of photography: I never know how to answer that question and I’m not very fond of labels. Evolving without labels is really evolving. So “my style” sounds just fine.
Type of camera(s): Mamiya 6×7, Bronica 6×6, SX-70, Canonet. A DSLR to test the composition and the lights when needed.
Website: http://fabienseguin.com & http://fabienseguin.com/blog/
What gives you inspiration?
Light. Wandering on the fringes of the cities. Life in all its forms. Desert spaces. Forests. Riding my bike and swimming also frequently give birth to wonderful ideas.
What are your influences?
As for photography, I have been influenced a lot in the beginning by the work of Rinko Kawauchi. But also by: Nan Goldin, Raymond Depardon, Stephen Shore, Alec Soth, Joel Sternfeld, Lyn & Tony and many others. Among the young photographers who recently made an impression on me, I would cite Ryan McGinley, Marten Lange, Jake Stangel, Richard Renaldi and Shen Wei. But I don’t come from photography. I come from literature and philosophy, so I would also cite authors like Montaigne, Nabokov, Seneca, Lucretius, Nietzsche and Dos Passos.
Why did you choose these photos?
These photographs come from two very different projects. One project is called Ultima Natura and is basically about us stopping being humans, becoming silent and starting a tree-like existence. I am more and more obsessed with forests and trees.
The other two pictures are from the Sinica Fragmenta (Chinese fragments) series. This project is simpler (I need a small crew for Ultima) but is more and more important to me. It aims to depict China as I see it and as I live it. It is like a mosaic made of landscapes, simple details of the everyday, portraits and objects. It is not about China as a documentary subject, but as a very personal subject.
What does photography mean to you?
Creating images has become the most important thing in my life now. The dreams I cherish the most are the ones where I take pictures and see the result after the film processing. Sometimes the images are so wonderful I would die to save them from oblivion… And then I forget the dream and the pictures. But I know these dreamed photographs are still here, hiding somewhere in my potential…
Photos:
Copyright reserved by Fabien Seguin
