A collection of black and white silver photographs taken between 1980 and 1985, portraits of friends or strangers encountered in the streets of Paris, scenes gleaned at random but with a formal desire for composition, Beginners presents the first photos of photographer Jacques Graf. "Sleeping beauties" never before shown, they retrace the poetic and melancholic journey of a young Parisian at the dawn of his career and his love life. A beginner. And beginners: these young women who are entering the world and whose names the photographer has forgotten; these first photographs in the career of a photographer, beginning in photography as in life. Accompanied by a text by the author, these photographs question the veracity of memory and the function of photography in the construction of a story. But what do the photographs tell us? Is the memory a certainty? Is truth essential?
"At the beginning one makes photographs to impress the girls, at the beginning we make photos for the impression that it will make on them, at the beginning we make photos to remember." 
Jacques Graf.

From the time he was in high school, photography attracted the young Jacques Graf in the same way that we are sometimes attracted by musical notes that we try to remember. Too shy to simply meet others, he used it to see better, to try to preserve impressions as well as to transfigure his daily life and built his life around this project.  Since the middle of the 80s, Jacques Graf has worked for the press (L'Obs, le Journal du 
Dimanche, Paris-Match, Der Spiegel, Focus, der Bild, Marianne, Madame Figaro, etc.) or companies with passion and rigor. In 1994, he joined the Editing agency, then in 2002 Fedephoto. The same year, he co-founded the agency Divergence-Images, of which he was president until 2017. His work is exhibited in French and foreign festivals.

 

débutantes by Jacques Graf
112 pages
Size 15 x 21 cm
ISBN : 978-2-493152-05-3
Price : 30 € TTC
Release : February 2023
Distributed by Art & Paper - Saveca