4-th French Large Format Conference, Bourges, France, October 10, 11, 12 2008

[Emmanuel BIGLER]

4-th French Large Format Conference, Bourges, France, October 10, 11, 12 2008

This conference is the continuation of a series of conferences organised by a French-speaking Large Format Community & Friends who regularly meet on http://www.galerie-photo.com, http://www.galerie-photo.info, and in the real world !

This conference is the 4-th conference; previous events were held in Nîmes, France in June 2004, Fontfroide Abbey, France in October 2006 and Montreux, Switzerland in September 2007.

The 2008 conference is sponsored and hosted by the local government of Département du Cher.

All lectures and presentations will be given in French but a lot of time is devoted to informal gathering, many participants do speak English & other foreign languages, so based on the previous conferences, the language barrier is not a real problem.

Location : Hôtel du Département du Cher, Bourges, France.

Dates : Friday, October 10, Saturday, October 11 and Sunday, October 12, 2008

Admission to the conference is FREE of CHARGE.
Many thanks to our sponsors !! Lunches to be paid extra, see below.

Linguistic note : in France, a hôtel might not always be a hotel; in our case, Hôtel du Département is in fact a superb historical mansion where the local government has its headquarters. So please do not ask for accommodation at Hôtel du Département du Cher

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Programme

Friday, October 10.

5 pm (17:00) Arrival / Welcome - salle du Duc Jean Duc (Jean Duke Hall) at Hôtel du Département

6 pm - 7 pm (18:00-19:00) Presentation of the conference by Henri Gaud, Henri Peyre, Marc Genevrier and Erick Mengual

7 pm - 8 pm (19:00-20:00) Visit of the photo exhibition, Noirlac project, presentation of the book "Noirlac(s). réel(s) photographique(s)/photographic reality/ies"

8 pm (20:00) Apéritif & dinner

Accommodation : each participant arranges on his own.

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Saturday, October 11


9 am - 9:30 am Welcome

9:30 am Henri Peyre : Le réel en photographie (Reality in photography)

10:45 am : Erick Mengual - Le droit à l'image dans l'histoire (Image rights in history)


11:45 am : Apéritif & Lunch

2 pm - 4 pm (14:00 - 16:00) : Informal gathering, exchanges, workshops : fabrication and images

4 pm - 5:30 pm (16:00 - 17:30) : Le Flare, Emmanuel Bigler and Henri Gaud

5:45 pm - 6:45 pm (17:45 - 18:45) : Galerie de l'Evolution - Marc Genevrier and Henri Peyre (Gallery of Evolution)

6:45 pm - 5:15 pm (18:45 - 19:15) : Pierre Stringa - La gélatine de veau est-elle photographique ? (Is calf gelatin photographic ?)

7:15 pm - 7:45 pm (19:15 - 19:45) : Apéritif with local specialities

8 pm (20:00) : Dinner

9 pm (21:00) : Night visit of the old Bourges city, commented by various participants.

11 pm (23:00) : End of day

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Sunday, October 12.

9 am - 9:30 am : Start

9:30 am - 10:30 am : The making of a collective photo book project, by Marc Genevrier and Philippe Do, about the book : "Noirlac(s). réel(s) photographique(s)/photographic reality/ies" sharing the experiences of the group Photographe(s) who made the book.

10:30 am - 10:45 am : Break

10:45 am - 12:00 : Workshop, Images and Machines

12:00 - 1 pm (12:00 - 13:00) : Apéritif with local specialities in Menetou Salon Lounge

1 pm - 2:30 pm (13:00 - 14:30) Lunch and Coffee

2:30 pm (14:30) : End of the conference, presentation of future projects

Note : for lunches & dinners served in common to conference attendees, the price has been fixed to 20 euros per lunch/dinner per person, beverages are not included. 4 lunches/dinners are scheduled for a total of 80 euros. Lunches/dinners should be paid in advance upon registration, there are no other fees at all. Each participant should arrange for his/her own accommodation. Registration will be open as of September 1, 2008 and all technical and practical details will be announced at the time.

For all additional information please contact Henri Gaud by e-mail :
henrigaud (hosted by) editionsgaud (dot) com

A non-exhaustive list of people who have contributed to this project : Erick Mengual, Henri Peyre, Marc Genevrier, Emmanuel Bigler, Philippe Domingos, Henri Gaud.

Latest news will be posted here :
http://www.galerie-photo.info/forum/...=21013&t=21013

See you in Bourges in October !

[Emmanuel BIGLER]

The French LF conference will be held next week in Bourges.
Admission is free ! So do not hesitate to come !
You can contact either Henri Gaud or myself for details.
This year we'll have a British delegation attending.
I'll place a short report here after the end of the conference.

[Emmanuel BIGLER]

This is a short report about our conference in Bourges, Cher, France, last week-end October 10, 11, 12 / 2008

The weather was actually perfect, unusally warm during the day. The Local Governemnt of the French Republic hosted us in the official conference rooms of Conseil Général du Cher, a superb old mansion built by the French Monarchy, where all local modern democratic debates take place routinely. We could see that royalists in the old times had anticipated everything, even the future.

The number of attendees was about 60.

During our free time, from the conference room upstairs we could admire the Bourges cathedral and the old city from a point of view rarely seen by the public; however when official sessions take place, a few seats are reserved for the public (and, incidentally, the taxpayers ) so keen photographers can actually enter the place (probably after the usual security check, or by invitation) and take pictures from a superb point of view.

The galerie-photo conference, besides some formal presentations by volunteers, is the place to exchange within the community about equipement, images & process. This year there were fewer cameras & equipment but more various images & portfolios in all kinds of processes including an amazing multi-layer color gum-bichromated. In fact I could not get enough time to discuss with everybody and see everuthing !

I have been absolutely delighted to exchange with young enthusiastic photographers showing their black and white baryt prints. This had a painful side effect to me, i.e. reminding me that I cannot find enough time those days to develop and print B&W images myself at home.

Among superb images, I was impressed by delicate palladium prints in the 5x4 format by Laurence Tondu who started this process after a convincing and fascinating demonstration by Philippe Ayral in 2003, during a memourable galerie-photo meeting. Other impressive images by D.F. with his home-made 6x17 panoramic camera, prints made either on Ilfochrome or by scan/print.

And, last but ot least, we are delighted to have met the British delegation of the UK LF group, 4 people who crossed the Channel for the pleasure of meeting us. Apparently the language barrier was not a problem, except at one formal presentation when a pair of eccentric French speakers (I cannot disclose their names here) insisted as a challenge in disregarding the microphones, so that even young and fine-eared native French attendees could not hear anything at all

I probably forget many other good moments, but I should mention that before the Sunday lunch served at the conference room, we had a wine tasting session offered by a local producer.


For those of you that could visit Bourges, France in the next weeks, the exhibition of photographs related to the conference will be displayed at Palais Jacques Coeur (within walking distance form the cathedral) until the end of October, 2008. Another exhibition is still up in Noirlac Abbey, located at 1/2 h drive south of Bourges by the motorway, Noirlac is the place where the pictures have been taken for our project, now completed.

As a conclusion we should thank again the local government of Conseil Général du Cher for their hospitality !