7 / Can you tell us about the projects you are working on lately?
There is actually two approaches, or line of work. The first is more the photography books, books that are mainly dedicated to showcasing images that I try to build like movies, or like mini stories, and then there are the guide books, more technical. The guides are made with Eyrolles( French Printer). I started working with them five years ago, they had reached out and asked me to make a guide on how to edit your own photography book, and since it went well they asked me to do another on street photography and after that another one on analog photography. The street photography one sold well, got distributed in China. So after all those projects I suggested we make another book, on a larger matter, based on the connection between photography and different styles of art, literature, movies and so on. This one will come out in a few months. It takes time, because I have to write the books.
Then for the photography books, one is coming out soon called SQ. I was working for Harcourt( french school of portrait) in the city of Saint Quentin and in between workshops I started making pictures, more minimalist, this one is finished. Then there ' s a big book on Belgium, regrouping 15 years of pictures from the country, it keeps getting bigger and bigger, I have been working on it for a long time. And finally a book on train stories, that I made because I often take trains, and wanted to evoke the stories I hear through images. And finally I am making a movie.
I have wanted to make a movie for a very long time, and with my project " Colorblind " had a first experience in creating a short movie, as well as " Wandering " which was a photo concert( images with an orchestra). Every book is a biography in itself, and lately I wanted to tell a huge story, and the movie sort of let me do that. The movie is a series of sketches put together, roughly ten, it ' s a new way to explore story telling. It ' s meditative and a comedy at the same time. It tells about life and its complications, mainly different stories about love and atmosphere. " The cup is full " will come out in DVD with a book on the 18th of December( for my birthday).
Gildas Lepetit Castel August 2017