Etienne Francey captures the return of spring through flowers transformed by light, color, and motion.
Published
As a child, I searched for birds whose names no one around me seemed to know. While others were playing soccer, I wandered through the countryside near foxes and green woodpeckers, building a world of my own in solitude. Nature was a refuge—a space where I could give shape to the invisible and allow dreams to exist.
I grew up between the camera and the paintbrush. As a teenager, I mainly painted with watercolor. When I decided to dedicate myself to photography, I promised myself I would preserve that same freedom of gesture, color, and experimentation—to keep playing with the image the way one plays with painting.
In this series, marking the return of spring, flowers become starting points rather than subjects. They gradually fade away, revealing fields of color, empty spaces, and white areas reminiscent of watercolor, where light seems to emerge from the untouched paper. A dandelion can become an almost abstract form, an unrecognizable green pom-pom. Contours dissolve, and movement takes precedence over description. A passing butterfly seems to emerge from a dream; the patterns on its wings appear unreal, although they may paradoxically be the element most faithful to reality.
The images are created without digital manipulation, aside from color correction and curves adjustments. I use only colored papers, tinted light, and distortions produced directly at the moment of capture. The colors shift between vivid tones inherited from painting and softer shades reminiscent of childhood colored pencils. Blur preserves the trace of gesture at the moment the image is taken.
