Seasons End
This work is inspired by a Marillion song called «Seasons End». The song is about the global warning due to climate changes and abnormal weather.
I chose to take these pictures in a tennis court covered by snow. It seemed to me a very symbolic situation that marks an end to things ; the snow itself represents an obstacle to a game that can not happen where it should be. No tennis game could be played, and the court is deserted because of the bad weather.
While taking these photos, some children came along and start playing around me. The place is not deserted anymore, there was their interference that made me redirect my subject to a more optimistic tune, so i start shooting them playing. The childhood they represent, carries a natural hope due to the “insouciance” that characterizes every child on earth ; children do not really care about issues like the global warning despite any education given to them. You begin to care about such things when you grow up.
Through the last three pictures, there is a black screen “falling down”, like a curtain that ends the show, an invading veil that hides the playground. The portrait of the children gathered is cut over their shoulders hiding their faces ; a nod to absence or even disappearance, before a final “blackout” as seen in the last picture.
I took these photographs in black & white, then i reshot them in color from my computer screen, giving them this freezing blue atmosphere like scenes coming directly from a refrigerated world where memories of a past life are kept preserved.
To quote Steve Hogarth (singer of Marillion), the song is : “A nostalgic lament about cold English Winters and their loss to global warming. Once you've got your own children you start to think about what kind of a world we're leaving them with... and which of your dearest memories might be impossibilities in the future.”
Listen to the song while watching these photos.
