Jérôme Blin

Jérôme Blin, Zoom 2013 winner of PRESS PHOTO ZOOM presented by Stéphane Brasca, editor in chief of De l’Air magazine.

A set of colour reportage photographs of adolescents in the countryside and suburbs around Nantes, showing the sense of boredom expressed in their eyes. Blin will have an exhibition of twenty photographs, printed by Central Dupon, shown at the SALON DE LA PHOTO in Paris from 7 to 11 November 2013 and will be shown at the CP+ fair in Japan from 13 to 16 February 2014.

Last February Jérôme Blin sent me his photographs of teenagers. I had never heard of this forty-year old photographer from Nantes, a member of a small collective called Bellavieza. As I looked at the pictures I was struck by the pervasive sense of boredom that cannot be shaken off by these ordinary youngsters living in ordinary suburbs and country areas. You get an impression of endless days spent smoking and wandering aimlessly through streets lined with depressing suburban houses, or sitting in bars where the same music is played again and again. I soon contacted him and urged him to enter the photos for the Zoom Awards at the Salon de la Photo, because I feel his work shows a real talent beginning to emerge and a particular style that should be encouraged. He told me he’d come late to photography, at the age of 32, after spending his early career working in industrial maintenance in the Vendée region. He found it very tough working as a freelance photographer for the national and local press, but would never go back to his former life. With this series, which he began working on in 2010 and which is now being extended thanks to a residency at the Maison des Arts in Saint-Herblain, he has chosen a difficult path. Photographing the everyday lives of teenagers devoid of obvious photogenic features in depersonalized settings in France (rather than in a far-off land where image rights don’t exist) reflects a special kind of ambition. It deserves our support so that Jérôme Blin can continue exploring his subject and produce a major account of the lives of ordinary youths in the countryside and suburbs around Nantes.- Stéphane Brasca