Liberte d'Expression

Everything photographed and edited by me.

As you probably know, on 7 January 2015 occurred the deadliest act of terrorism in France of the last 50 years. 12 persons died in the offices of "Charlie Hebdo", a satirical newspaper, because they believed in an absolute form of freedom of expression. I must confess this tragedy hurt me deeply. A few days later, a gigantic march occurred in Paris as an historical act of protestation against terror, against censorship. At least everything is not lost, millions of people still believe in those values: it was somewhat heart-warming.

The day after that march, I decided to pay an homage to this reaction, by recreating another version of the famous painting "La liberté guidant le peuple" by Eugène Delacroix. In this version, I replaced all the weapons by pens, pencils, cameras or books, as a metaphor for the defense of freedom of expression.

Of course, that painting involves various characters, and I don't have access to lots of models. As a consequence, I brought my camera at work, and quickly improvised a shooting session. I had no lighting gear at all, so it was a bit challenging, but lots of people spontaneously accepted to pose for the project. Thank you so much everyone! From left to right:
- Olivier, the photographer, always keen for a good laugh
- Simon, the dead clown, and the most helpful guy you'll ever meet
- Ronan, the singer, that definitely does not need a microphone in real life
- Francesca, the social networker, unstoppable whatever the circumstances
- Marianne, la République, my dear wife who guides my life
- Yannick, the paperboy, whose brain is quicker that light
- Luc, the dead book-writer, as clever as Yoda, but much more handsome

It was an ambitious project, very challenging to achieve in a few days (there are 44 different photos assembled in the final image, and I shot around 1000 of them to get there), but I am happy of the result, and I hope others will enjoy it too.

Thanks for watching, et Vive la Liberté !