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Errance
Un nouvel album du célèbre photographe : une définition de l'errance comme une quête de pureté, de désir, de remise en cause, une quête du moi.
181 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published October 18, 2000
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
September 16, 2021
It sounds like an oxymoron, but I have "reread" one of my top favourite photo books: Raymond Depardon's "Errance". In Depardon's case, reading a photo book is not at all strange. Errance is as much a literary and philosophical journey as it is a photo essay. It's a very small booklet, with in fact more pages dedicated to text than to photos.
Depardon is an intriguing personality, exuding an image of high seriousness and timidity. Yet I don't know any other photographer who is as forthcoming to share the intimate details of his craft and the life in which it is embedded. A first reading of Errance was slightly disconcerting to me because of its pervasive and explicit yearning for female love and companionship. It's only Depardon's disarming honesty which keep certain passages sliding into sentimentality.
What is more interesting, however, is both the actual subject matter - "errance", meaning the act of wandering around - and the way this is translated into a photographic project. Depardon is very articulate about the thinking process behind his work in this book and it is immensely rewarding to be able to peek behind the curtains of a real master.
With "Errance" Depardon wanted to escape the drudgery of producing "information" or "documentation", the raison d'être of his trade as photo journalist. Once he had taken up the plan to tackle a subject matter as ephemeral as "Errance", the question immediately rose about how to render this photographically. And here is already a very interesting piece of advice: "I have to find what the Germans call an "Einstellung": how to position oneself with respect to what one shows, and at what distance."
Apparently, his Einstellung is determined via a number of photographic choices: "Starting from there, I chose a format, a focal length and a single camera. I was thinking about very sharp pictures, something very well defined in the graphical sense of the word, to avoid the caricature. I wanted pictures in a vertical format, cut in two by the horizon with too much sky, too much foreground in order to mark my presence and to avoid being able to cut corners. I wanted to provide a counterweight to the horizontal screen of the cinema, but also to the magazine spread and the grand romantic tableau." So his quest for Einstellung begins with a hazily intuited sense of what kind of image he would like to produce and what kind of tools he needed to do so: an Alpa SW12 equipped with a 6x9 back and a Schneider 58mm Super Angulon. The 6x9 format reinforced the corridor-like effect Depardon was after. The rugged, precision-engineered Alpa would take care of the sharpness of images. The limited luminosity of the Super Angulon - largest opening is a f8 - forced Depardon to take pictures almost exclusively outdoors, in bright sunlight.
A second element in determining his Einstellung is, of course, the spatial datum of movement. Wandering around is essentially travelling. But it is travelling without a specific sense of purpose. It is very much the opposite of the "useful" travelling of the photo journalist. Echoing a text by Alexandre Laumonier, Depardon characterises "errance" as "the search for the acceptable place", the place where at every point the question arises "what am I doing here?" (here I was reminded of Bruce Chatwin, another great wanderer). Depardon started out his voyage revisiting familiar places, such as New York and the African desert. But that didn't work. There was too much history linked with these places. So he ventured elsewhere. The book doesn't mention any particular place and there are no captions to accompany the pictures. But from looking at the images and from picking up clues in other Depardon books one can infer that he must have been as far afield as Patagonia, Berlin, Tokio, France, Turin, southern US, the Middle East ... The wandering was aimless: "In Errance, there is no subject. I don't defend the poor, I don't decry the rich. I photograph clouds, the ground."
A third and final element is Depardon's relationship to the temporal dimension. In "Errance" Depardon wanted to get rid of the tyranny of the decisive moment and develop a more quotidian, more banal vision on the timing. "This is what I was after: the exceptional anti-moment".
With these rules, Depardon had delineated his Einstellung, his base position. "I was very happy that I had given myself these strict rules to oblige with." Within this framework, Depardon was now ready to let emerge whatever had to emerge in the purity of his gaze.
We haven't talked about Depardon's pictures yet. They are truly gorgeous. To start with, the sharpness is astonishing. (Has Depardon taken all his pictures from a tripod? He doesn't mention it). There is a wealth of details near and far which simply draws you into the image. Similarly, textures have a luminosity and a liveliness that is typical for large negatives. Depardon's booklet is very well printed. The images really shine. The reproductions are even better than the prints I have seen at the Depardon retrospective exhibition at the Rotterdam photo museum which lacked the inciseveness and liveliness of the photos in the book. Depardon has used an old Kodak emulsion - Verichrome Pan (not any longer available) - which results in a most deliciously delicate tonal scale. Even concrete and bitumen seem to live under the harshest sunlight. The few pictures taken in the soft light of early morning exhibit a delicacy and seductiveness that is a welcome relief from the otherwise uncompromising angularity and bareness of most images in "Errance".
None of the pictures in Errance can really be linked to a particular locality. Billboards or mural inscriptions in arabic, french or japanese give the barest hint. Many images are taken in these nondescript in-between zones: the fringes of cities, suburbs, or on the road to nowhere. People are mostly absent (but their imprint is everywhere). If they are present, they can be seen only at a great distance (and if closer, only from the back).
What Depardon has mapped in his "Errance" are habitats, nothing more and nothing less. It is about places that are inhabited, sometimes barely so. One gets the impression of looking at our planet from a great distance: not the enchantingly poetic image of the great blue sphere swimming in space, but a place that is not particularly beautiful, not particularly loathsome. It is just a place. This is the purity of gaze that Depardon was after. It's a perspective that is profoundly unsentimental, but deeply compassionate. I find this book, despite its diminutive sized truly monumental.
Depardon is an intriguing personality, exuding an image of high seriousness and timidity. Yet I don't know any other photographer who is as forthcoming to share the intimate details of his craft and the life in which it is embedded. A first reading of Errance was slightly disconcerting to me because of its pervasive and explicit yearning for female love and companionship. It's only Depardon's disarming honesty which keep certain passages sliding into sentimentality.
What is more interesting, however, is both the actual subject matter - "errance", meaning the act of wandering around - and the way this is translated into a photographic project. Depardon is very articulate about the thinking process behind his work in this book and it is immensely rewarding to be able to peek behind the curtains of a real master.
With "Errance" Depardon wanted to escape the drudgery of producing "information" or "documentation", the raison d'être of his trade as photo journalist. Once he had taken up the plan to tackle a subject matter as ephemeral as "Errance", the question immediately rose about how to render this photographically. And here is already a very interesting piece of advice: "I have to find what the Germans call an "Einstellung": how to position oneself with respect to what one shows, and at what distance."
Apparently, his Einstellung is determined via a number of photographic choices: "Starting from there, I chose a format, a focal length and a single camera. I was thinking about very sharp pictures, something very well defined in the graphical sense of the word, to avoid the caricature. I wanted pictures in a vertical format, cut in two by the horizon with too much sky, too much foreground in order to mark my presence and to avoid being able to cut corners. I wanted to provide a counterweight to the horizontal screen of the cinema, but also to the magazine spread and the grand romantic tableau." So his quest for Einstellung begins with a hazily intuited sense of what kind of image he would like to produce and what kind of tools he needed to do so: an Alpa SW12 equipped with a 6x9 back and a Schneider 58mm Super Angulon. The 6x9 format reinforced the corridor-like effect Depardon was after. The rugged, precision-engineered Alpa would take care of the sharpness of images. The limited luminosity of the Super Angulon - largest opening is a f8 - forced Depardon to take pictures almost exclusively outdoors, in bright sunlight.
A second element in determining his Einstellung is, of course, the spatial datum of movement. Wandering around is essentially travelling. But it is travelling without a specific sense of purpose. It is very much the opposite of the "useful" travelling of the photo journalist. Echoing a text by Alexandre Laumonier, Depardon characterises "errance" as "the search for the acceptable place", the place where at every point the question arises "what am I doing here?" (here I was reminded of Bruce Chatwin, another great wanderer). Depardon started out his voyage revisiting familiar places, such as New York and the African desert. But that didn't work. There was too much history linked with these places. So he ventured elsewhere. The book doesn't mention any particular place and there are no captions to accompany the pictures. But from looking at the images and from picking up clues in other Depardon books one can infer that he must have been as far afield as Patagonia, Berlin, Tokio, France, Turin, southern US, the Middle East ... The wandering was aimless: "In Errance, there is no subject. I don't defend the poor, I don't decry the rich. I photograph clouds, the ground."
A third and final element is Depardon's relationship to the temporal dimension. In "Errance" Depardon wanted to get rid of the tyranny of the decisive moment and develop a more quotidian, more banal vision on the timing. "This is what I was after: the exceptional anti-moment".
With these rules, Depardon had delineated his Einstellung, his base position. "I was very happy that I had given myself these strict rules to oblige with." Within this framework, Depardon was now ready to let emerge whatever had to emerge in the purity of his gaze.
We haven't talked about Depardon's pictures yet. They are truly gorgeous. To start with, the sharpness is astonishing. (Has Depardon taken all his pictures from a tripod? He doesn't mention it). There is a wealth of details near and far which simply draws you into the image. Similarly, textures have a luminosity and a liveliness that is typical for large negatives. Depardon's booklet is very well printed. The images really shine. The reproductions are even better than the prints I have seen at the Depardon retrospective exhibition at the Rotterdam photo museum which lacked the inciseveness and liveliness of the photos in the book. Depardon has used an old Kodak emulsion - Verichrome Pan (not any longer available) - which results in a most deliciously delicate tonal scale. Even concrete and bitumen seem to live under the harshest sunlight. The few pictures taken in the soft light of early morning exhibit a delicacy and seductiveness that is a welcome relief from the otherwise uncompromising angularity and bareness of most images in "Errance".
None of the pictures in Errance can really be linked to a particular locality. Billboards or mural inscriptions in arabic, french or japanese give the barest hint. Many images are taken in these nondescript in-between zones: the fringes of cities, suburbs, or on the road to nowhere. People are mostly absent (but their imprint is everywhere). If they are present, they can be seen only at a great distance (and if closer, only from the back).
What Depardon has mapped in his "Errance" are habitats, nothing more and nothing less. It is about places that are inhabited, sometimes barely so. One gets the impression of looking at our planet from a great distance: not the enchantingly poetic image of the great blue sphere swimming in space, but a place that is not particularly beautiful, not particularly loathsome. It is just a place. This is the purity of gaze that Depardon was after. It's a perspective that is profoundly unsentimental, but deeply compassionate. I find this book, despite its diminutive sized truly monumental.
February 3, 2020
Le livre offre une perspective qui m’est nouvelle sur la photographie; une photographie simple et ne cherchant pas l’esthétique et surtout distante... il rapporte aussi une sorte de quête de réponses et de raison à une ‘profession’ ‘passion’ ‘vocation’ avec toute la perdition ressentie par l’auteur et qu’on retrouve bien dans le livre.
July 17, 2012
Great book on wandering the world, experiencing it and taking some pictures along the way.
July 25, 2020
l'ensemble est très intéressant mais les répétitions rendent le dernier tiers un peu désagréable
April 27, 2018
Il aurait été deux fois moins ennuyeux (et moitié moins long) si quelqu'un s'était donné la peine de supprimer les répétitions qui gangrènent l'ouvrage. C'est d'autant moins compréhensible qu'il s'agit de la mise en livre d'une suite d'entretiens : si on a tendance à se répéter lorsqu'on discute, on peut justement éviter ce genre de désagréments avec un livre. C'est dommage.
Il aurait été deux fois moins ennuyeux (et moitié moins long) si quelqu'un s'était donné la peine de supprimer les répétitions qui gangrènent l'ouvrage.
Il aurait été...
Il aurait été deux fois moins ennuyeux (et moitié moins long) si quelqu'un s'était donné la peine de supprimer les répétitions qui gangrènent l'ouvrage.
Il aurait été...
September 5, 2025
“les gens souvent se trompent quand ils pensent que si je donne du temps dans mes films c’est parce que je suis photographe. ça n’a rien à voir. dans mes photos, je donne du temps aussi. le temps est quelque chose d’important pour moi. c’est la ou je me sens proche du xixe, c’est à dire que je m’éloigne. je ne veux plus qu’on me reproche ma distance. je l’assume, je la revendique. elle est mienne. chacun a sa distance.”
February 7, 2021
Pas spécialement convaincu par tout les aspects de ce livre, mais c'est tout de même assez agréable. On sent que Depardon est plus photographe qu'écrivain, et certaines de ses réflexions tournent des fois un peu en rond mais l'ensemble se laisse lire et quelques passages permettent vraiment de comprendre les intentions de l'auteur et ses stratégies de mise en image de l'errance.
June 26, 2024
Un photographe errant qui théorise et pense sa pratique à merveille. Depardon a une capacité d'introspection fascinante, ainsi qu'un regard tout à fait intéressant. Depardon est un homme intéressant et inspirant. De plus, sa vision du voyage et de l'errance est très complète
August 19, 2022
J’ai beaucoup aimé suivre ses voyages et découvrir son monde au fil de ses photographies!
September 15, 2024
Let me know another aspect of photography.
April 25, 2025
Les photos ne m'ont pas subjugué mais des réflexions vraiment intéressantes dans l'ecriture
June 21, 2025
Vide comme sujet. Maîtrise des lignes de composition/ de la géométrie voir surcomposé
October 12, 2014
re-read in 2010
And in 2014!
And in 2014!
December 6, 2016
Un chef-d'oeuvre! Pour les amateurs de photographie et de littérature... vous ne serez pas déçus.
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews