Books
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THE OTHER TIME, GENRE SCENES 1974-1995. Editions 89books (English-French bilingual edition).
"In this book, I offer an anthology of early works produced between the years 1974 and 1995.
Situational comedy then took precedence in my photographic approach. The associations of ideas and the counterpoints dominated my gaze and my way of apprehending the vision I had of the world around me. The unsaid and the off-screen were never very far away. "
It was a bygone era and I didn't know it ...
"There is no chance, there are only meetings" said the poet Paul Éluard, No staging in these images, just contests of circumstance that I patiently let take shape and that I capture. In search of traces of humanity, scenes from the daily life of humans and animals ... in short, of existence.
The desire to look at and keep old images, some of which were made 48 years ago, gives me various impressions that come from introspection and at the same time from a certain distance. Like wine, some age happily and others leave an unfinished taste.
In any case, it is an exciting image reading for me that measures the degree of spontaneity and the uninhibited attitude of the novice photographer that I was at the time. Jean Hincker
"At its very core, humanistic photography champions inspiration and selflessness, those charitable of being sound, fair, uplifting, genuine and heartfelt, akin only to Godliness.
Was photography a time machine, moving between parallel universes, what wonders might we imagine that could come true? Backward, forward, forward, backward—experiences, painful and plentiful, nothing ever lost. The everyday lives of people, their cityscapes, their inspirations from Paris to Barcelona, Venice to Bastia, Biarritz to Chefchaouen, and to Luxor. This world serves as Hincker's blank canvas splashed with visions full of color, style and experience; of faces and customs; flavors and scents; and beliefs. Humanity is very much alive." Manuel Rivera-Ortiz
Atlantic pebbles. Editions Cap de l'Etang.
I started to glean these fragments of universe that are these pebbles during the year 2017, scattered along the Aquitaine coast. The more I discovered these little jewels of Creation the more they inspired me. Each small stone made me travel and revealed its hidden side to me. I detected all possible and imaginable forms.
Animal figures, busts and other finery had immersed me in 1974 in the unknown world of Hans Hartung (painter and photographer), a book published in 1974 and which had adorned my library for so many years. Behind each of these smooth, rounded, flat or slightly chubby-shaped pebbles were hidden works of art worthy of the greatest names in art history.
These products of erosion, piled up in my bag, were just waiting for recognition and notoriety. The pieces of rock, rolled by the ocean surf, sculpted and polished by salt water and sand, reveal to us the creative power of nature. The sediments, immobile after a long journey, remain silent and present themselves to the photographer in their most unusual and mysterious appearances. Sometimes discreet but often exuberant, they tell us about their past lives as soon as we approach them. From a distance they all look alike.
The stone is alive. It will be revealed by scholars and poets. She will tell us about her journey… Then she will age after passing through the hands and eyes of the photographer. The photographic "portraits" of the pebbles in this book were made in situ and in the studio, avoiding any artifice of retouching and any modification during post-production. All the models, in confidence with the photographer, posed and gave their authorization for the diffusion of their image, according to the rules of the right to the image in force… Jean Hincker
Breton coast south, out of season
| Charantais coast out of season
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The men of the prison
| FLOWERED FALLOWS, the Landes in color
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COLLEGES Of TODAY: “The TIME OF MIDDAY” photographic Project initiate by the General advice of the Young people and conduit by Jean Hincker near the pupils of seven colleges of the department of the Moors.
| Village People, Hastingues. Portraits of inhabitants of the village of Hastingues, Landes, France. Ed. Atlantica
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“Almost outside, the workshop differently” Photographic workshop carried out by Jean Hincker auprès
| Village People, Azur: Portraits of inhabitants of the village of Azur, Landes, France. Ed. Atlantica
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Les Landes, a devastated forest. Preface of Henri Emmanuelli
| Village people: Goos, Portraits of inhabitants of the village of Goos. ED. Atlantica
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AQUITANIAN LITTORAL EXCEPT SEASON. Ed. Atlantica
| The Hidden side of the plant, draws to me a sheet. Preface of Yann Arthus-Bertrand. ED. Atlantica
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Forest of Gascogne, the spirit of the forest. ED. Atlantica
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How to remain insensitive to the atmosphere that emanates from the Breton coast? How not to have a crush in front of each of its ports that seem open to all and at the same time that remain secret. I could not. All these sites visited, I liked them. And I wanted to keep a trace of it through this book and its 491 photographs that try to translate these impressions and these emotions that invaded me. I wanted to share this atmosphere that mixes tranquility, serenity and also energy and sometimes violence, including natural elements. A kind of quiet strength ... Some Breton writers have enlightened their good words these images they have appropriated. It remains only for the reader to find themselves through these testimonials in pictures of a country that remains one of the most outstanding in France..jpg)
“With a less rainy climate - seldom misty - that of the coasts of Gascogne, a luminosity which inspired by many artists, of the colors of the traditional huts of the oyster culturists or those of constructions on the islands, the inhabitants of the Charente-native littoral live for water and by water. It is what I tried to show in these images. Not by adopting the documentary mode but by supporting that of the landscape. I preferred to tell and immortalize the environment and the decoration, indissociable of this territory. This work does not have anything exhaustive as for the choice sites photographed but the coastline of the department represented most largely possible. ” Jean Hincker
All the images and all the texts of this book were realized by the prisoners of the prison center of Mont-de-Marsan during studios(workshops) led by the various participants(speakers). This work is thus the outcome of a collective work and a process of shared creation. Copyright perceived(collected) on the sale of this work will be put back in the AESAD, educational and sports Association of helps(assistants) to the prisoners. They will be of use to the financing of new cultural actions. The held(detained) people appear openly, what contributes to the innovative quality of the work. A photographic exhibition(exposure) can accompany the book The interventions took place between March, 2010 and July, 2012. " Images which translate the unique(only) atmospheres met in places of lives specific as the room of the worship(cult), the rooms of activities, the fitness gyms, the libraries(bookcases), the gymnasium, the cell(unit), the passageway, the visiting room, the computer rooms … Places where the prisoners, through these activities, try to become reconciled with themselves and with the others. So images which evoke the prison environment under an angle more spiritual and more cerebral than morale, so favoring the personality of the man deprived of freedom in phase of introspection to the detriment of the punishment and of its repressive arsenal. Finally sensitive(perceptible) texts which tell us the plentiful and often chaotic thoughts of the imprisoned people ". Jean Hincker.jpg)
One day sunny of the beginning of the summer 2007, my son says to me, ghost of a ballade with buddies: - Dad, one discovered a marvellous place in full shift, a field of flowers with full with color and different kinds… - A field of flowers? I answered him, incrédule. You want to say a cultivated space which belongs to a nursery gardener… - Not, not. A small holding cultivated but not corn. With flowers! And it gives me the explanation: “The father of a friend works for the forest of the Moors. This one indicated to his/her daughter a site where a flowered fallow was established”. Intrigued, I go at once to the place in question and it is a truth a love at first sight when I fall on this multicoloured space. Hundreds of square meters of flowers which côtoient the pines and corn while being affirmed without complex in the decorations agricultural usual. For a photographer, it is blessed bread… I then decide to assemble a photo project on this innovating and daring concept of flowered fallow. I address to the instigators who are the federation of the Hunters, the Room of Agriculture of the Moors and the General advice of the Moors. I propose a contemplative and plastic glance to them on this project of flowered fallow whose main role is to emphasize the grounds left in waste land. Information taken and provided with the list of the sites concerned I begin finally my photographic peregrinations. Lost in this grouillement of colors and forms I left my inspiration of melting myself, like the insects, in a terrestrial species of paradise where the music of the plants is stronger than the din of the city. People of the forest and the ground knew to make profitable with a rare intelligence an ecological and majestic solution. I left each time these completely thoughtless flowered spaces of rapture. The plants of interior which accommodated me at home appeared quite dull after such a voyage… While showing these images I want to pay homage to nature and those which live it and which work it by respecting it. Jean Hincker, 2012.jpg)
“Our schoolboys chose, them, to testify to their respective schools through a series of stereotypes showing the human one primarily. Using mainly the portrait as photographic kind, they show us with the distance and the rigor from the professional photograph the moments of freedom and slackening devoted by the cut of the semi-day (“the time of midday”). They sauntered through the mazes of the seven colleges of Mount-of-Marsan, Roquefort, Gabarret, Saint- Pierre of the Mount and Villeneuve, armed with their cameras during five approximately one hour meetings per college. They thus immortalisé their colleagues in their environment during the time of restoration which is declined in two periods: the time of canteen and entertaining time.“ Jean Hincker
A place of life. It is the troisème village of the Moors which I immortalise through the photographic portraits of some inhabitants. And the pleasure is always present. The department of the Moors is very wide and the very small villages. And I like to lose me there… I return for this troisème shutter of the saga “village people”, with my fundamental. A catch of frontal sight without much setting in scene, just of the indications of placement. The model is melted in its environment, grabbed by this one. It unobtrusive step but is not put really ahead. It is present. The subject has confidence and is not on its guards but remains concentrated on the task which it must achieve. My role is to imply it in the catch of sight. A simple light of environment accompanies the tables where the men and the animals find themselves. It is at the bottom the key that I prefer to show the human one. And I think of Walker Evans and especially of August Sander, of the large Masters of the photograph who made me like it. Jean Hincker
This exposure testifies to a double will: to make possible of the cultural practices within a penal establishment near public prevented and, by this practice, to cause enrichment of the participants by the training of techniques, to know to make and of knowing to be. The catch of photographs, the choice of the subjects photographed and framing, the work of pulling are as many personal takings risk. They accompany an education with the glance, a confrontation from the points of view in the critical analyzes, a reflection on oneself and its immediate environment. Through this publication and the exposure of these photographs it is a little their perception of this place enfermement lived with the daily newspaper which the prisoners deliver to us. That also answers the wish that they had expressed to go until the end of an artistic step by exposing it taking into consideration general public. It is also the result of an always renewed adventure: the implementation of activities for the prisoners in a great penitentiary is complex. It requires to surmount obstacles and prejudices. Arnaud Jolly, cultural coordinator, Jean Hincker, photographer, each one in their field of competence showed of patience, perseverance and pedagogy to make live this activity. That they are thanked for it. Patrick Ganne Director of the penitentiary service of insertion and probation
I am filled. This second opuscule of the series Village People is born finally. I discovered a village in the department of the Moors. Different from the precedent (see Village People, Goos). Because I have the impression well that these villages - landaises or others is followed but do not resemble. Initially it there with the geographical location which interferes in the habitat, therefore in the perception of the residents of their close environment. And I felt it at the photo meetings. Then there is an estival population which leaves its print. With my models, I keep a relation stripped of empathy, psychology. I voluntarily preserve any case I test a distance with the inhabitants who make me the kindness lend their image. And I often wonder who look at which in these photographs where the subject is here and elsewhere, and in which no judgment shows through. It is not question for me of finding the truth through the portrait but of camping the characters in their universes well where they are already installed. Each model is a particular case through which the photographer does not recognize himself inevitably. We thus need a imparable means to approach people and to make them tell, the time of a fraction of a second, their history. And the good means is a tool: the camera (“… kind of passport” said Diane Arbus). The photographer is erased then quite naturally behind his objective and the magic operates in a kind of envoutement. It is finally the model which manufactures its own image without anything to require of that which observes it. The commune of Azure, strong of its six hundred inhabitants, murmurs with the ear of the photographer right what she wants to say to him well. And like the writing so well Guy Of Maupassant: “The heart with the color of the glance. The blue heart alone carries in it of the dream, it took its azure with the floods and space”. Jean Hincker.jpg)
Taken in the storm this January 24th, 2009 - I reside in the forest landaise - it took me time before presenting this project. Disorientated as all the inhabitants of the South-west of France, the man of images took the top. The most extended forest of Europe, I had made a book of it one year before. A forest upright and proud which I had immortalisée. It is still into contemplative that I wanted to translate this vegetable drama. I tried to show some thanks to the medium of desolation. I drew aside in my images the hand of the man: no human interventions but just the damage caused by Klaus. I saw vestiges and ruins there pointing out more the hurdy-gurdies stones of old buildings to me that remains. These images testify to the beauty of this debris. Like a remedy for disappearance, the absence of my close environment. The stone remains, not the plant. There will remain nothing, with share the images, of this climatic plundering. It is necessary for us thus to safeguard the traces of them. The method can vary according to the perception of each one. Me I decided to keep of it the spirit of a certain elegance. Following the example artist who sees only one strange splendor in the middle of the confusion which surrounds it. My stereotypes do not pay homage to Klaus, far from there. My intentions are not neutral and the storm does not leave me good memories. But I must acknowledge that these trees and this decorations carved by the wind, these improbable tears, the unit bathed by seizing lights, generate a single environment. The atmosphere D `a pitiless execution by a nature which affirms its power mingles with that with a heroic death with the plants which it destroyed.
Jean Hincker poses his glance of photographer in the department of the Moors since nearly twenty five years. In love with this rural environment, it tries to testify the richness to it to its men and his nature. For him the man is indissociable of nature - forest in fact. By this incursion into a village landais, it reveals us the existence of women and men who live not hidden, but far away from the vibrating life of the city. And it discovers there with happiness of people of an authentic grace, a great kindness and equipped with an unquestionable wisdom. “Village People, Goos” should be the first subject of a series on the villages landais. At fifty years, Jean Hincker passed half of his life downtown (Paris) and the other to the countryside (Moors). He joins again in this collection with the discipline founder of his passion for photography: the portrait.
There remained perhaps a photographer in the Moors who had not harnessed with immortaliser the Aquitanian coast. This project itched me indeed for a certain time and a preliminary question was essential on me: was necessary it to cover the subject in tourist high season or except season. Decisive condition because it was going to guide my approach with regard to this so different money coast according to the seasons. I finally chose the hollow period because the tourist surge remained altogether reduced over the duration. I thus found myself only in the middle of a desert of sand and buildings dislodged, côtoyant the wind, the cold light of the winter and the noise resounding of the ocean occupied to unroll his swell in front of a public absent. The Aquitanian littoral is single in its kind: kilometers and kilometers of beaches bordered of more or less imposing dunes with a visibility reduced in length. And this omnipresent noise of the powerful vagueness which recalls you constantly with the order and this sometimes violent wind which slows down you in your work. These grains of sand which are involved in the fragile mechanisms of the cameras and which can stop the inspiration without preventing. This rare environment is bread blessed for those which want to see and translate the landscape that this littoral offers. I hope that my images will be able to often show to the feelings melancholic persons who attacked me at the time of these long walks. How not to feel in front of these lunar and disproportionate horizons a certain vagueness with the heart and a feeling of major humility. During these long excursions an impression of wear - with the image of dune erosion - attacked me and released me more. As if the ocean corroded all on its passage. As if the salt water combined with sand had two missions to fill: to set up beaches for the estivants and to nibble the littoral to nourish itself. The contemplative one, him - or rather me, nevertheless tried to despize these meanly geological considerations and concentrated on the specific atmosphere of the seaside..jpg)
The photographer Jean Hincker is not here the agent of the gods, but it chose to explore it beyond the sheets, the things hidden in the pages of the universal herbarium and the recesses of its garden. And it returns filled with wonder at the voyage. He also often collected, under the green and fresh sheet, the dry and faded sheet, sometimes broken up, because these drowned-there, in the ocean of the trees and the plants, can avoid fabulous splendors, clean to push back all the curses of autumn. Yann Arthus-Bertrand, in his foreword, precise: “The photographic work of Jean, who is resulting from a specific photographic process (absence of catches of sight, all is carried out in laboratory) does not claim a traditional macrophotography. Its matter is different. It tells us the life strange and poetic of each fragment of plant and the chaotic course of the life recalls us at every moment which surrounds us. ”.jpg)
Pines as far as the eye can see, so tops and so dense… More than one million hectares, a disproportionate extent. We are in the middle of the largest main forest of Europe, in a single environment, created and managed by the man. Here, the pine drained the marshy and unhealthy moors. It offers its wood, its resin and its elegance. In this book, “to divide into sheets without noise, haste, as a recluse. Like a walk…”, Jean Hincker makes us share a “tinted graphic environment of odors and noises”. He offers moments of “transparency”, “graces”, “lights to us”, of “loneliness”, etc to transcribe all the beauty, diversity, delicacy, the harmony and the richness of this forest. But the pines can become dark and worrying when the horizon is stopped… and the “imprudent flanor can discover a dangerous and underhand nature”. It is this forest of the moors, strange and miserly of sensational, that we makes discover Jean Hincker through superb photographs and a very personal glance. These images are accompanied by very documented texts where the history, the legends, the traditions, bring an enthralling lighting on this territory which did not cease a voluer that the forest of pines was implantatée under Napoleon III.