In Cédric Darbord’s work, the passion to be testament to the world creates images that are grasped and reproduced under the reign of patience. On the verge of astonishment and of dream, here is our world, effervescent, calm or pathetic. The artist creates a rare moment for the audience. The one where one rediscovers light and its time.
Step by step, whatever the subject, night metropolis or abstract elaboration, sports stars or pensive managers, the power of the instants becomes essential again. Nothing is given anymore. It is necessary, and it is the singular success of this photographer, to revisit colors and places. Everything that the daily endless stream mixes or impoverishes stands out as if unscathed in these images. Everyone almost wants silence to enter these fascinating worlds.
There is nothing factual in this work. The rigour of framings, the accuracy of tones, the clever contrasts bring in a dimension that totally molds our postindustrial society. Where others illustrates the froth of days, Cédric Darbord reinstalls the wonderful greatness of evidences, without any deference nor clash.
The race of the hemispheres, their labyrinths, create lots of images. Those who struggle to copy painting but never obtain its crucial impact. Cédric Darbord realizes photographs where it is about, as etymology carries it, to « write the light ». Not only the one that emerges at each dawn on earth, but only the one that stands in every being’s secret. Thus, it is about the photography practice of an artist who takes risks.
The question asked by Cédric Darbord is simple. Could fraternity reformat the world? You always leave these photographs with regret, and very often more serene. There is in these images plenty to apprehend reality and the conscience of reality in its magnificence.