Mist, alienation, and eeriness: how photography can capture such a mood, and why? Simon Grass presents here his series “In the mi(d)st of the night”, answering our questions about photography, personal and artistic growth, and night photography.
Who are you? Would you introduce yourself for our readers?
I am Simon Grass, 40 years old, father of 2. I am a former 1st AD for the movie industry. I was born and raised in Paris. Throughout my career on movie sets, I traveled all around France and became more and more curious about the places and the people I saw.
I started to take pictures of this France, a France I never saw on screen or in the media. At the very beginning, I did it with a small compact camera: I took more and more pictures to document this places we name La France Périphérique/Peripheral France. Friends and colleagues invited me to show my work and so I won a photo contest in 2015 and hence signed a contract with a gallery and the famous art site, called Artsper.
After that, I started to work more professionally and called my ongoing series about France La France Vraie/The truthful France (it is worth noting that the French term “vrai” implies not only the notion of “the true France”, or “the real France”, but it also implies the concept of honesty). Then, my work was noticed on Instagram by the PSG (or the EIKON team as well) who invited me to participate in a "Carte Blanche". I’ve won other contests, exposed my pictures several times and worked on a lot of project since then. In 2016 I left Paris to live in the countryside (in this "Truthful France" mentioned previously) and I started to share my work between directing video ads, writing screenplay and taking pictures.
If you had to choose, would you call yourself an artist or a photographer?
I’m a Photographer. My work is definitely sociological, political and "down to earth". Plus, I’m a poor technician. In my opinion, being an artist implies a certain degree of "mastery" (which I don't possess) and working with conceptual abstraction.
When did you start your activity as photographer?
I've always been taking pictures, even as a kid. But it was in 2004, during a trip in NYC, when I started to reflect on the pictures I took. I made a blog (which unfortunately has been deleted) and took some nice pictures with my first 2M px digital camera.
Has the French artistic environment influenced you somehow? Did you get any inspirations from French photographers?
Yes. I've always been a huge fan of Robert Doisneau. And it was my first real series (EIKON shared it on Instagram). However, the way I take pictures is in direct filiation of Raymond Depardon. Also, I'm also influenced by Martin Parr, Harry Gruyaert or Wes Anderson.
Your series is about night and strangeness: when did it come to your mind? How do you connect these two subjects?
It happened by chance. I was sent for a shooting in Niort, in France. We had driven the whole day and we arrived late at our crappy B&B hotel in a middle of this commercial/industrial zone, just outside of town. There was this very strange and dense fog everywhere. So, I just dropped my bag in my room and, even if I was tired, I went for a long night walk with my camera, ending up making this series. There was a mix of strangeness and melancholy in this empty town in the middle of the night.
You said that the title of the series is a wordplay: “In the mi(d)st of the night”. What did you want to express by resorting to this wordplay? Would you give us further details?
Sorry, it is just I am really bad at finding title for my series. So, I chose the obvious solution with this easy wordplay (which doesn't even work in French).
The blurred light in your photographs clearly plays a central role. Would you explain us this artistic role better?
I think the central role is played by the landscape. However, this Mist gave me the opportunity to shine a different light on it. Like if I had a lot of softboxes. Then, when I composed my pictures, I tried to find a balance in the image, including this blurred spots the best way I can.
When I looked at your pictures, I also felt a deep sense of alienation and solitude. Was I right, or did I misunderstand your message?
You are absolutely right. A lone stranger walking through the night of an unknown town.