Les gens de mon village

In this first photographic series, created when he was 30 years old, Denis Dailleux gives a face to the nostalgia of his childhood.

Denis Dailleux and Le Bec en l’air continue to deepen their collaboration, pursuing through this book—after Persan-Beaumont (2018) and Juliette (2019)—an exploration of the photographer’s early work. At the end of the 1980s, having left his native Anjou to try his luck in Paris, overcome by nostalgia for an enchanted childhood, Denis Dailleux returned to Chanzeaux to photograph the “people of his village.” He was 30 years old; it was his first major series of images, shot in black and white. In the twenty or so portraits gathered here, the photographer takes the time to share memories of that childhood in a text full of sensitivity, offering valuable insights into his work. Those already familiar with it will recognize his meticulous framing and his attention to life, to flowers, to gardens — all the elements that have, for almost forty years, defined the uniqueness of this exceptional portraitist. With this rarely shown series, Denis Dailleux gently celebrates roses and cabbages, paying tribute to a rural world on the verge of disappearing.