Bizarre or trending subjects, catch a break with our curiosity of the week. French photographer Paul Baudon carried out a curious experiment: photographing with the heart – literally.
Cardiac rhythm and photography. This weird albeit electric association has intrigued Paul Baudon, a photographer who develops documentary projects as well as more experimental works. “I like to tell stories, meet people, and through them, documenting demographic, geographic or environmental subjects. I also like to question the photographic medium”, the young artist says. As evidenced by À l’origine du Coeur (at the heart’s origin, ed.), a series dedicated to electricity and photography – or rather their encounter. Before him, Etienne-Léopold Trouvelot, and more recently Hiroshi Sugimoto also documented to existence of this link, by focusing on electricity’s movement. Paul Baudon has pushed the concept further by focusing on the medium, thus proving it is possible to photograph with our beating hearts. “It is the most significant electric pulse for human beings. Thus, I tried to retrieve this pulse, to amplify it and have it draw an electric arc on paper”. The result is striking: a series of white abstract lightnings.
Though these light beams’ meanings are free to interpretation, biological forms can be distinguished. A tree there, leaf veins there… Nature, and more broadly life has taken back its right. “This series started a bit naively. I wanted to create pictures from my heart, taking the expression quite literally. Now I’m thinking in more global terms”, the artist tells us. “To many, photography is a way to see the world, and, by extension, to live things. The interest of such a medium resides in its ability to tell, show or help understand things. Following this thought, the act of photographing is as immediate and booming as a heartbeat”. A love letter to a unique kind of image.
© Paul Baudon
