Water is a fascinating element, both essential to life and creation, and terrifying, when unleashed. These two sides of the same coin allow cycles of renewing and ending to happen, at different scales of time and sizes, and can even decide the fate of entire species, on this planet where everything is intertwined.
The work presented here shows this duality, always there, as well as the somewhat useless attempt to control this brute-force, and turn it into a peaceful and even benevolent when time stretches with long exposures. But even then, secrets remain hidden under the distorted lens of the surface that reveals solely fugitive shadows in the depths. Moreover, nature reminds us that life is precarious.
The two other important aspects of this work are the abstraction of the images, and their ability to bridge photography and other arts such as drawing and painting. With this series, the abstraction helps creating mystery, allowing people to invent their own world, their own story, and develop their own emotions. This long exposure technique, combined with black and white post-processing is also very interesting, since it makes the viewer react and wonder about the medium as much as about what is shown: what is this? A drawing? A painting? Certainly not a photograph! Are these clouds? Water? What is the scale: very small or very big? Etc.
Born in France in 1981, Thibault ROLAND lives currently in the USA, where he works as a biophysicist in a laboratory at Cornell University (Ithaca, NY).
His enthusiasm for photography started very early, when he was about 15, during his first trip to Egypt. Since then, he travelled to many distant and exotic countries. Since then, his enthusiasm for photography never stopped deepening, and turned into a real fascination for light, and the infinite possibilities it brings up.
This is one of the reasons why he chose to study Physics in France, and to specialize later in Biophysics. In his research, he uses light to manipulate and better understand the fundamental aspects of life, by studying DNA.
His website http://thibaultroland.com reflects the numerous aspects of photography he studied, from close-up photography, to landscapes and seascapes, as well as portraits. Recently, he developed a deep interest into black and white fine art photography, and more precisely long exposure techniques (up to ~5 minutes).
Regarding his work, Thibault ROLAND says: â??My life is about light. The light that I hunt from dawn till dusk, and even during night time. The light that springs out from unexpected encounters, as well as the light that of the laser I use to study the fundamental mechanisms of life in my lab.
My goal is to take you oversees, to introduce you to abstract, poetic and artistic universes, with exploding colors, or composed of gorgeous black and whites.
Multi-faceted or blurred with my lenses, I offer to share with you my discoveries, my travels, as well as the the people I met.
Awards 1st place 2012 International Photography Awards, category Architecture, Non-Pro
