Tirage de tête : Ouessant, Molène, Houat, Bréhat
The final journey of one of the great contemporary photographers, accompanied by the poetic inspiration of a lover of islands.
Bernard Plossu had already roamed, camera in hand, three Breton islands: Houat, Molène and Bréhat. In spring 2025, it was Ouessant that welcomed his footsteps and his gaze.
This book, bringing together the work produced on these four islands, presents over sixty images infused with salty sea spray, Breton light, chiaroscuro effects, and rocks hovering between raw power and figuration. Through the pages, one also encounters laundry hanging in the wind, trees leaning toward the horizon, and lighthouses standing in the distance.
All the poetry of Bernard Plossu emerges from these photographs, in which black and white mingles with a few colour images printed using the Fresson process.
Gwenaëlle Abolivier, an Ouessant native at heart, accompanies these works with her delicate words, allowing readers total immersion in these islands where the world seems suspended, beyond time.
Data sheet
- Number of pages
- 112
- Size
- 205 x 260 mm
- ISBN
- 9782363063809
- Technique
- hardcover
- Publication date
- 2025
Gwenaëlle Abolivier
Journalist and writer Gwenaëlle Abolivier is also a voice on France Inter radio. For more than twenty years, she traveled the world as a foreign correspondent and program producer. Today, she focuses on literary and poetic writing: Tu m’avais dit Ouessant (Le mot et le reste, 2019) won the 2020 Marine Bravo Zulu prize.
She is the author of the illustrated portrait Ella Maillart, l’intrépide femme du globe (Paulsen, 2023), several stories including La Forme du fleuve (Le mot et le reste, 2023) and Qui a vu Monsieur Corbu ? (Bernard Chauveau Édition, 2016). In 2022 and 2023, she is an associate author at Maison Julien Gracq, where she is also the artistic and literary director.
She has a particular fondness for islands around the world and the maritime universe.
Plossu (Bernard)
Born in Vietnam in 1945, Bernard Plossu occupies a unique place in the international photography scene thanks to his ability to explore the world on foot. Considered the leader among traveling photographers, he began his career in 1956 during a trip with his father to the Sahara. This was followed by numerous reports in Mexico, the American West, India, Africa, and Europe.
Immediately recognized for the relevance of his vision, he creates sensual images with motionless and silent vibrations that speak to us of the softness of bodies, matter, surprising configurations of objects, and above all, the obviousness of landscapes that are often desert-like and sometimes abstract. Through an intimate style comparable to poetry, he quickly gained renown, enabling him to exhibit his work in the most important museums in France and Europe from the 1980s onwards. He is recognized as the last of the great French photographers of the 1960s, whose black-and-white and sometimes color images (Fresson process) are now present in several institutions and feature in numerous publications considered to be true artist's books. He has produced more than 400 photography books during his career. For Bernard Chauveau Édition, he completed his tour of the Breton islands, which he began several years ago, searching during long walks for the very essence of these landscapes from which humans seem to be excluded.
No customer reviews for the moment.
