Discover the contemporary work of Jean-jacques MASSOU

I was born on July 3, 1957 in Pau (Pyrénées-Atlantiques) and spent most of my adolescence in the Hautes-Pyrénées where I completed all my secondary studies. At that time, I was not yet really interested in photography. It was during my university studies in English in the early 1980s that I gradually became attracted to the image and its construction. A little later, at the age of 28, I really began to I started taking a lot of pictures after buying my first film SLR camera, a PENTAX ME SUPER with two PENTAX lenses, 50mm and 80-200mm. I was immediately won over by the big difference in image quality compared to my very first basic "instamatic" type camera and that's what encouraged me to try to perfect my mastery of photographic technique. After shooting a few color films, I quickly turned to slide film which allowed me to continue taking a lot of pictures at lower cost thanks to the reduced development cost.

Since 1985, I have owned several other SLR cameras, all of which have provided me with many possibilities and satisfaction: NIKON F3, NIKON F90, CANON FTQL (1960s), CANON EOS 10, CANON POWERSHOT G5, NIKON D70, NIKON D90, NIKON D7000 and currently I own a NIKON D600, but also a NIKON F100 and a NIKON F5.

Towards the end of the 90s my self-taught photographic journey also included the experience of the black and white laboratory and I was a member of the "Vues du Bessin" photo club from 1998 to 2006. It's the recent invasion of digital that has led me to practice black and white more irregularly over the past 15 years, but there's nothing like the magic of the lab to give you the satisfaction of having done almost everything yourself in the creation of your photo.

In my opinion, photography is the best way to reveal in the world - and to
definitively capture - everything that is too fleeting for our eyes to
capture. It is also the way to bring out the aesthetic qualities of everything that
surrounds us, especially when these are barely perceptible or too ephemeral.
In the viewfinder of my camera, my eye strives to find everything that can flatter
and seduce the eye in the composition of landscapes, in the harmony and poetry
of colors, in the graphics and beauty of forms. My photographic quest
is like a treasure hunt in which a successful shot would be a nugget
of gold, and this desire to get closer to perfection drives me like a
permanent and unalterable thirst.
In the second half of this long photographic experience, I was attracted by the
numerous possibilities offered by digital technology to cross the thin line that
separates photography from painting. So I exploited different painting software to transform my best shots into paintings, trying to imitate certain classic or modern styles. While this "mixed technique" doesn't always produce results that meet my expectations, some of the creations are, on the contrary, very pleasant to look at and almost make you forget the original photograph.