I know Heliotrope for a long time now: once model she’s now a close friend and has always been along during my journey in developing my photography, gifting me with her trust - including for my crazy and not-so-good ideas. She was there when I was working on duality back in 2008, and when I started to turn toward more positive emotions in 2011. This is why I’m really really pleased to welcome her again here for the /den/ project.

Actually, this is not the first time I tried to photograph her in her home. We’ve conducted some experiments in the past years, many experiments - with a more or less high level in alcohol, I confess. If all of those tries worth it, I’m under the impression that this is the very first time I reach such a level of honesty in rendering her personality through her environment. I could go on and explain all I can see in this picture, actually I started writing it down but deleted it. Like I explained my struggle in describing with words all I can put into my imagery dealing with /equi.libre/ project, I think I would fail my purpose by explaining too much with this picture too.

Each piece of the /den/ project is a sneak peek into somebody intimacy. We’re dealing here with real people, real homes, real trust. This project is not staged, it’s one of the most intimate projects I have ever pursued. This trust glues both the project and the relationship I have with the models, which is basically why I love so much working with people. Trust is mandatory for initiating this kind of shoot as well as publishing the result but trust is also what I gain from this body of work. The relationship with the model is a human to human relationship, it’s not professional nor especially friendly (excepted when photographing friends obviously!) but right in the middle. A person talking to another person, a human trusting another human by opening and offering a view to one of their most intimate « possession »: their home.

The den of Heliotrope