midnight80
Profile
Image creator.
My name is Chris and I live in south of France, near Spain. I’ve developed a passion for photography and photomanipulation as a result of a lack of time to actually draw what I visualise in my mind.
EMAIL CONTACT MIDNIGHT80 [at] GMAIL dot COM
From Photoshop magazine article (issue#31 Oct. 09) :
Midnight-digital & end of the world.
Tormented dreamscapes, desert and silent plains, all invitations to remote and chimeric territories. Christophe Dessaigne’s creations are open doors on fantastic and dreamy horizons where digital photography serves the fanciful imagery of surrealist photomontages.
His universes are desolate, vast, insubstantial. Gigantic scaled structures rule the landscapes, dwarfing human beings to the size of ants. His post-apcalyptic kingdoms, equally poetic and terrifying, are visions of the end of the world.
On his long road to digital creation, Christophe first bought a Canon digital reflex in the late summer of ‘07 and started learning the basics of digital photography. The artist soon grew a consuming passion for picture-taking. In no time he was strolling about the Perpignan region on the Mediterranean coast (South of France) every weekend in quest of the image. He then endeavoured to improve his photography skills and experimented a lot (with night pictures, light-painting, etc.)
But for the cinema and comics enthusiast, the mere chance of stumbling upon a nice shot was soon just not enough anymore. He thus took to the creation of simple and elaborate mise-en-scenes, mostly set in desolate places such as derelict lands, disused hospitals, etc. Then again, his pressing urge to alter reality left him frustrated somehow.
“The more I was learning about photography, the more I realized how frustrating it could be,” he explains, “most photographers are usually after outstanding natural landscapes and rule out, maybe out of snobbery, digital tools. I consider digital photography as an extraordinary way to alter and experiment with the image, and ultimately bring it to something fantastic, in the literal meaning of the word.”
Driven by this creative urge, now unhindered by the sacrosanct rules of photography, Christophe threw himself into editing. “The possibilities offered by Lightroom and Photoshop combined are unlimited. My work mainly revolves around two axes and depends on my mood. I can take “simple pictures” with few editing or get lost in sophisticated photomontages.”
Altering reality
Christophe’s photomontages deal with the themes of melancholy, fantasy, and solitude. “When I was still a child, the closing scene of Planet of the Apes struck me. It left a permanent mark in my mind. The final vision of the Statue of Liberty coming out of the sea and sand before Charlton Heston and its post-apocalyptic staging when Man realizes how infinitely small and ephemeral he is, is definitely grandiose. Same with the 80s SF masterpieces like Mad Max, Blade Runner, or Brazil. This cinema is a great source of inspiration for me, it has influenced me strongly.” He adds “The works of painters like Jean-Pierre Ugarte or Beksinski are also inspiring to me, just like the masters of surrealism are: Dali, Magritte… On the comics side, the works of Metal Hurlant-era masterminds Druillet, Moebius, Caza etc is pure genius to me. These people have left their mark on the comics imagery and fantasy. They have been and still are great storytellers.” As to photography, Christophe finds interest in photographers like Chad Michael Ward, Shane Harrison Parkson, or master of long exposure Michael Kenna.
Even if he readily admits enjoying photomontage, photography still takes up half of his creation work: “I think that the success of a complex photomontage resides in the story it has to tell. Technique is secondary though still necessary. To evoke a feeling, an image has to tell something, it has to carry the viewer in a different world, besides having a solid composition. Most of the time I know exactly what I want in the end. I visualize the final image before I start editing it. I even often sketch it.”
Christophe uses a Eos 40D with various lenses. The one he uses most is the Sigma 10-20mm. “The ultra-wide 10-20mm lens is sensational. It allows for cinematic framing. Although the rules of photography impose post-processing correction of barrel distortion, I tend to leave them unedited. Especially on architecture, buildings and monuments pictures. I like the distorted lines in 10mm.”
In keeping with the idea of altering reality, long exposure shots are also a major element of the artist’s work. “I use my B&W 110 +10 diaph filter a lot, which enables daylight long exposure shots. I live on the coast so I have plenty of occasions to use it shooting the water and ebb-and-flow becoming a stunning fleecy cloud. It gives a very strong effect when coupled with magenta, and one might want to correct it (or not) with post-processing. A good tripod is still the long exposure photographer’s best friend.”
Christophe is a devoted user of community website Flickr, where he has built his own professional network and exposed his creations, among which novel covers, album artworks, etc.
Groups
midnight80 is a member of Minimalist Landscapes.
