Life story

There are times in life when it's important to set a milestone that celebrates what's happened and prepares us for the future.

Alongside my work as an event photographer, I've often been asked to go a little further with my customers. On the basis of a trust established by placing myself at their service for a unique and important occasion, working in the moment, they have then asked me to give shape to their past and their memories...

This can be in a professional or private context. The common denominator is that I have been provided with an intention accompanied by a greater or lesser number of documents:

• photos
• videos
• objects
• locations
• music

I've often been given carte blanche to make sense of it all.

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Come to think of it, it's a continuation of my basic profession, which began in 1988 and ended in 1993, the heyday of the slide show. With 2 to 6 synchronized projectors accompanied by a soundtrack, I presented a multitude of projects, including :

• architectural projects for building permits
• presentation of the BPEC postal center and how a letter or parcel is delivered to its recipient.
• launch of Mazdas 323 in a show for Swiss dealers
• presentation of the travels of an explorer who crossed the Andes by bike and foot for 3 years.

Computer presentations such as PowerPoint or Keynotes then supplanted this type of service for companies.

But this know-how has turned into something else....

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I believe my first life story was the presentation of the career of a Genevan psychologist: André Rey, as part of an anniversary celebration following the 25th anniversary of his death. I had access to his laboratory, which hadn't changed since he left. He smoked gitanes, so I lit a cigarette, put it on an ashtray to see the smoke rise, played his voice and footsteps on the wooden floor... the montage was enhanced by photos of his various works. In just a few moments, the audience came into contact with the man and the researcher.

I was then contacted by Robert Assael, president of Les Amis Montagnards at the time. As part of the association's 100th anniversary celebrations, he wanted to mark the occasion and present the group's history. We showed the good times and the not-so-good times, including an accident that cost the lives of several of its members.

A few years later, Maître Robert Assael, this time a renowned lawyer, asked me to produce a montage based on the life of Maître Dominique Poncet, a lawyer at the Geneva bar and colleague of Maître Marc Bonnant:

Extracts from the TJ, photos, interviews - I had a multitude of sources at my disposal and had to present the facets of the character who was broadcast in a loop during a special evening of the Geneva batonniers.

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Suzanne Farkas, a leading portaitist photographer from Geneva, asked me to create a montage on the life of her husband, an actor who had made a name for himself in the Tiger Brigades. I explored the actor and the man he was. She also sent me photos of the various wives he had. I think it's the most beautiful expression of her love for him to show all the women he met before ending his life with her.

But you don't have to be dead to make a life story... A certain Diane also commissioned me to present the life of her husband. When I met him on the day of the presentation, I felt as if I'd known him all my life. She had given me all the images of her life, and he obviously knew nothing about me, so I work behind the scenes, in the wings of his story.

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It was also the 80th birthday of Mamani, a strong woman who had fled the Iranian revolution, giving me the opportunity to present a story with very few images, since she had lost everything on the road to exile. With traditional music, a few archive documents and the voice of her grandson, the audience was plunged into a legendary past that featured a large family at the time of the Shah of Iran. In the four corners of the world, the family has since grown to include children and grandchildren.

For the same client, I was then asked to present the life of her 30-year-old son, taking photos of his wedding at the family estate. Then her husband's 80th birthday and his career as a private banker, military officer and accomplished man.

She has outfitted a room in her house as a projection room, where these montages are watched and re-watched by the whole family.

My job is to create emotions that weave a lasting, tangible bond between us all, making us see and feel.

At the end of this journey, there was the disappearance of her husband during the Covid period, and the tricky task of evoking these last few years of existence on the basis of too many photos taken with cell phones. It was a difficult task, which I tried to accomplish as best I could by placing them in a setting of their various residences in Geneva, at the mountain and by the sea, where they stayed in turn.

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What's most moving is the trust that people have placed in me over the years. A client called me in 2006 to ask if I remembered him. I'd taken his wedding photos in 1999, but in the meantime he'd remarried and asked me to concoct a surprise for his new wife's 40th birthday. 10 years later, in 2016, it would be for his 50th. Each time, we have exciting sessions where we share photos, music and scenes to make life beautiful and intense. He likes to play games and asks me to photograph other milestones in his life, such as a party in Barcelona for old school friends, or his son's soccer career...

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Very recently, in February 2023, a service provider and event organizer contacted me for the most personal of his events, following the sudden disappearance of his partner. During a trip to Paris to celebrate his 60th birthday with his children, he learned that she had been rushed to hospital. He barely had time to rush back to Geneva, and accompanied her as she breathed her last... A few days after her death, he spoke to me to present his life for the funeral service in St-Georges. It was an intense 48 hours of day-and-night work that would mark commas in the funeral oration...

These montages, which sometimes accompany death, are in every case a hymn to life. A marker in the existence where there was before and after...

From photographer, I gradually became a life coach.

The training I undertook between 2016 and 2019 as an art therapist, now encourages me to approach the image and creation in general, not as an end in itself, but as a restorative process that allows us to go further together, to be co-creators of our lives. In a way, this is the message I'd like to convey today for the developments I'd like to carry out as part of Studios Casagrande's activities.

Go further together to turn your ideas into images.