Raymond DepardonNOTES

In 1975, issue no. 1 of the journal Arfuyen published an interview with Jean Eustache, the only one given by the author of the brilliant film La maman et la putain. An interview with Jean-Daniel Pollet, the author of Pourvu qu'on ait l'ivresse, had been prepared for No. 2.

In the years that followed, Gérard Pfister and Philippe Delarbre decided to open up the work of Editions Arfuyen to the world of photography. They discovered Raymond Depardon's work in an issue of Photo-Reporter devoted to him and a brochure he had published entitled Tchad.

Without knowing him, they contacted him in November 1978 with the idea of working together on a book that would combine the expressive power of the photographer's gaze with the inner distance of poetic writing.

Raymond Depardon was quick to respond. He had just returned from a trip to Lebanon and Afghanistan in November and December 1978. Alongside the reportage photos, he took more personal ones and pasted them in a school notebook, trying to accompany them with autobiographical notes. He had no precise project, and was not satisfied with the texts.

When Gérard Pfister and Philippe Delarbre presented him with their idea for a book, he was enthusiastic about the possibility of completing his attempt with the collaboration of people with writing and layout skills.

And so Notes was born, out of two very different cultures: poetry magazines and photography magazines. The joint project was to invent a new form, one that would break away from the unbearable style of the full-page glossy photo albums that were all the rage at the time. The book, consisting of thirty-four photographs accompanied by fragments by the author, was published in 1979.

Thanks to this unlikely and fruitful encounter between a poetry editor and a photojournalist, this highly unusual book is now the seminal work of Raymond Depardon.

(From the publisher, translated from French)

Softcover, 25 x 19 cm, b&w photographs. Cover in good condition with discolorations. Inside in very good condition. Text in French. RARE