Interview Dobry Znak-Pologne

Dobry Znak-20/03/2009

Le journal Polonais: Dobry Znak, qui parait tous les 15 jours à Varsovie (Warszawa) et sa région, vient de faire paraître un article contenant mon interview par Aneta Saks et plusieurs de mes photos dans son numéro daté du 20 Mars 2009. Je suis très heureux du résultat final (excepté la faute d'orthographe à mon prénom mais ce n'est pas bien grave). Les questions d'Aneta étaient très intéressantes et mon permis également de mieux comprendre ma démarche de photographe.

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J'ai répondu à cette interview sous mon vrai nom: Olivier Jollant, Olivier Daaram étant mon pseudonyme. Les questions m'ont été envoyées par e-Mail en Polonais. J'ai répondu en Anglais et Marta à traduit mes réponses en Polonais. Un sacré travail d'équipe ! Quelques semaine plus tôt, Marta avait elle aussi répondu à une interview pour le même journal...le résultat sera visible  sur son weblog très bientôt !

-Voici la version en Anglais:

"Hi ! my name is Olivier Jollant and as a photographer and on the web my nickname is Olivier Daaram. I'm 43 years old and I was born in Paris-France; My wife and I are living and working very near from Paris in a town called Saint Gratien (20.000 inhabitants). I'm mad about photography and fascinated by all the kinds of arts as movies, design, fashion, painting, sculpture... All of this is my way to breathe, to live and to express myself. I'm also fascinated and working a lot on the web, since more than 4 years I'm showing my photos on the web and it's an extremely fascinating and interesting experience, also a great way to meet people, contacts and clients.

1) My parents are very good photographers, my mother is very good to take portraits and my father in architecture. When I was around 16 my aunt offered to me my first camera, a Minolta Srt100x...and since this time I never stopped to take pictures ! I was taking many kinds of photos, exploring the little world around me, with a lot of street photographies, reports,still lives, portraits and a lot more. During the end of my studies I've been an assistant photographer in a photo studio for fashion & advertising. When I was 18 and after my baccalaureat diploma (same level than the Polish Matura) I went to work for 6 months in Edinburgh-Scotland as an assistant photographer for weddings and portraits. When I came back I became a shop assistant in a professional photo-lab during 10 years where I learned thousands things. At the same time I continued to work a lot on my pictures, to learn to work in the darkroom, to watch, to see and to observe millions photos in the magazines and exhibitions, to try to understand masters' techniques and at the same time starting to manually manipulate the slides and negatives and to meet other photographer and painters. since then I've been working as a photographer for models, actors, fashion designers, painters, sculptors, musician...I work now with a digital camera and working a lot on the computer and Photoshop.


2) I like your vision about my works. The main lesson in street photography is to always have a camera with me ! and this way to do is changing all my way to watch the world around me ! I'm an observer and I'm fascinated by human beings, their individual and collective psychologies, their ways to behave, to move and to be interactive with their environment and the tools or objects. I don't like mathematics but I love geometry and I always try to find the "perfect framing and composition" even when I'm capturing the portrait of an unknown kid running ! every moment of our life is important and I try to capture those little moments of eternity that only the photographer are able to catch ! I must be hyper sensitive but my portraits of unknown people are also a meeting, a silent dialogue and a personal homage to their beauty, strangeness or charisma. My photos are speaking about loneliness, love, meditation, strength, faith, invibility...for me nothing is random in this life ! if you're a good watcher it's possible from time to time to capture the harmony or contrast between human being and the world around him ! to be able to do is the most beautiful thing for me ! I believe in miracles, very tiny and simple ones, made of light, lines and smiles.
I'm mainly a photographer but I like also to write stories, short poetries about my pictures...and I love to paint. I've been painting miniatures stained glass windows in an abstract / symbolic way 15 years ago. Slowly I'm coming back to all this thanks to the computer, I'm digitally reworking and manipulating photos in a surrealistic & abstract way and I love that.

3) I discovered Poland one year ago thanks to Marta who is Polish. We're living in France together and her family is from Sosnowiec and very regularly we're visiting them. I love Poland ! and even if I don't speak in your language I feel very near from Polish people ! I like their way to be, at the first meeting a bit cold then when you know them a bit more, extremely friendly, simple and kind. Polish people are patriotic and at the same time very conscious about the history of their country. Poland became quickly my second country and Marta's family my second one. When we are there I take different kind of pictures than in Paris...a lot more still lives, places and architecture photos. Under the Eiffel tower I'm an anonymous photographer in the crowd and it's quite easy to work like if I was a simple tourist. In Poland and in Sosnowiec in particular, they're not so many tourists or photographers, so I don't have my camera around my neck and I don't take pictures of people in the streets. It's probably also because I don't speak in Polish and I don't want Marta to have problems because of me taking photos. So we're exploring the towns around, the old little streets, I mainly like to try to capture the atmospheres and the soul of the houses, buildings and urban architecture in general. I like this unique mix between modern tags on the walls and the nice churches, the architecture from the communist times and the modern town centers and cars. To take photos in Poland is like a travel in times, like to travel in some Parisian suburbs where I was living when I was a kid. There's a very unique atmosphere in this part of Poland, something cold, sad, urban but proud and so extremely human ! Walking in those streets I always feel the huge and heavy weight of the Polish past and history on the buildings and the colours of the objects, a permanent clash between the 80's and today...I love this: In between. Your country is a real inspiration for me and I like the photos of a lot of Polish photographers I discovered on the web !
At first I've been charmed by how people are kind and friendly ! At first I've been surprised by the red tramways and the churches, the huge amount of different vodkas it's possible to find here ! At first I've been fascinated by a lot of little graphical details like the so nice design of the trams ticket and how good is Polish food and how welcoming are the apartments !

4) Since I'm showing my photos on the web I spoke and met with a lot of people and other artists and that's already a success !
My pictures received several awards on the Internet and has been seen thousands times by thousands people all around the world. I'm proud to have so many links to my works and my name at Google. Several years ago I participated to a collective exhibition and sold several of my pictures, that's an important event for me ! I took and sold my photos to professionals painters, fashion designers and rock bands ! I love all those experiences and I'm ready for the next ones !

I'll be back in Poland in a few weeks and I'm very happy for that ! thank you !"