Nos vies partagées

It is with a Lubitel, a cheap, light, retro and friendly medium format that Patrick Taberna works in the assumed style of vacation photography. A habit of light and off the beaten track travel, that started with Sylvie in their student years, continued after the birth of the children, who were taken on journeys, open to the unexpected, with little to no preparation, except maybe by reading travel writers like Nicolas Bouvier. Ceylon, then Switzerland. A close, family-friendly and quiet destination, but very inspiring, equal to another mountain country: the Basque Country and the family village of Musculdy.

The birth of his children, Clément and Héloïse, considerably broadened the perspective and subject matter of Patrick’s photographic travels. They were enriched with the sensory discovery of the world, the ephemeral reign of toys, the appearance of time, the hands that caress the flowers and the earth. Then adolescence, just evoked, like a cutter, while Patrick and Sylvie move towards the “flower of age”.

It is thus the unfolding of these shared lives that can be read little by little in the sequence of photographs accumulated over the years. A musical, poetic suite more than documentary, even if the images carry this evidence of the lived moment which is the magic of photography.

Didier Brousse