Sebastien Cailleux began his journey in Ethiopia back in 2008 sharing visual experiences with Ethiopian artists and fellow photographers whilst travelling through the country. This culminated in the founding of the École d’art au village association, which now exists in more than 25 countries, benefitting 25,000 youths.
The Teferi Mekonnen Department of Photography was the very first Department of Photography to be established in Ethiopia at the Entoto Polytechnic College (founded by Emperor Haile Selassie as the Teferi Mekonnen School). The College celebrates its Centennial next year and a major photography project to celebrate this significant event is underway.
Sebastian admits that it is a challenging but also a unique opportunity to train students about the History of Photography and to reveal the roots of Ethiopian culture through a visual approach. His main objective in working with the College is to provide students with concrete training, expose them to professional surroundings and guide students after graduation.
“Instant digital photography is the trend of the moment”, Sebastian says. “Artificial images are also coming. With a smartphone, the photographer sees the photograph
‘‘I believe that to practice photography, photographers need to know about light, contrast, tone, and frames.’’
Sebastien Cailleux
on the screen whilst taking it and immediately shares it. The smartphone is performing all the calculations; light, contrast, tone etc.
However, I believe that to practice photography, photographers need to know about light, contrast, tone, and frames. So, that is why I want them to work with analogue cameras: they need to learn “how” to measure light, to think about and to choose the speed, the lens aperture, the film sensibility. And moreover, they have to wait a bit, allowing the chemical treatment to reveal the photograph, before seeing it. In our “Instant” time, this is, in my opinion, the better way to think
about it.”
More info: http://edaav.org/