Page not found – Portraits in a City https://portraitsinacity.com Photography by Rico Michel Tue, 05 Mar 2024 16:26:32 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=5.9.9 https://portraitsinacity.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/cropped-favicon-32x32.png Page not found – Portraits in a City https://portraitsinacity.com 32 32 Déjà vu https://portraitsinacity.com/deja-vu/ Sat, 30 Sep 2023 18:56:55 +0000 https://portraitsinacity.com/?p=700 Read]]>

Gallery

Pipe dreams
Meet me upstairs
Undergound
Retour de flamme
Grille
Boris
Ashes to ashes
Bridges to Babylon
Every breaking wave
Boyau

images © 2023 Rico Michel

Meet me upstairs
Your skin is an itch
And your mouth is a place
Of which I never tire


These analog film photographs are printed in large format and mounted on a frameless aluminium sheet.

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Abstraction and photography https://portraitsinacity.com/abstraction-et-photographie/ Sun, 17 Sep 2023 18:17:04 +0000 https://portraitsinacity.com/?p=686 (Français) L’image photographique ne peut, comme le fait la peinture, aspirer à une abstraction pure, mais est-elle pour autant condamnée à platement représenter le réel? Read]]>

Sorry, this entry is only available in French.

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Farewell, photography https://portraitsinacity.com/adieu-photographie/ Tue, 18 Oct 2022 01:31:19 +0000 https://portraitsinacity.com/?p=612 (Français) «Adieu, photographie» est un des chefs-d’œuvres de la photographie moderne. La vision de Daidō Moriyama est d’une parfaite cohérence: elle repousse les limites formelles de la photographie tout en l’affranchissant de tout devoir de réalisme. Read]]>

Sorry, this entry is only available in French.

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Salt and soot https://portraitsinacity.com/salt-and-soot/ Wed, 06 Jul 2022 14:04:10 +0000 https://portraitsinacity.com/?p=563 Read]]>

Gallery

Winterreise
Snowpark
Sous ton manteau d’hermine
Poudrerie
Fost
Yin Yang

images © 2020-2023 Rico Michel

Large format, aluminium mounted frameless prints of these photographs can be found at the boutique.

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What we don’t see https://portraitsinacity.com/what-we-dont-see/ Thu, 30 Jun 2022 01:13:42 +0000 https://portraitsinacity.com/?p=560 Read]]> A man who had seen me at work during one of my numerous photographic wanderings shared this fine observation: “You are photographing what we don’t see”

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Walking with Daidō https://portraitsinacity.com/walking-with-daido/ Mon, 06 Jun 2022 17:00:52 +0000 https://portraitsinacity.com/?p=549 Read]]> “I think that the everyday has many slits in its landscape, of which over on the other side, there is another world.”
— Daidō Moriyama

images © 2022-2023 Rico Michel

While reading “Memories of a dog”, I imagined myself as a japanese Kerouac, on the road with Daidō. We were trying to get lost in space-time, in search of this state where, deprived of our usual landmarks, we would come to confuse past, present, memory and imagination. Daidō was not nostalgic. He was not looking for a memorable image, but for the image of memory itself.

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Land of shadows https://portraitsinacity.com/terre-des-ombres/ Fri, 27 Mar 2020 15:31:38 +0000 https://portraitsinacity.com/?p=310 Read]]>

Light is to a photographer the substance that gives shape to the world.”

images © 2020-2023 Rico Michel

Large format, aluminium mounted frameless prints of these photographs can be found at the boutique.

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The immortals https://portraitsinacity.com/the-immortals/ Fri, 14 Feb 2020 13:00:58 +0000 http://portraitsinacity.com/?p=303 Read]]>

“Your key to immortality,” Richard Underwood, NASA’s chief of photography in the 1960s said to Buzz Aldrin and Armstrong, “is in the quality of the photographs and nothing else.” via @aperturefnd #hasselblad #nasa #photography #moonlanding50th pic.twitter.com/IYYRYcU6wH

— Portraits in a City (@portraitsincity) July 19, 2019

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Cosmology of Light https://portraitsinacity.com/cosmologie-de-la-lumiere/ Mon, 30 Dec 2019 21:57:21 +0000 http://portraitsinacity.com/?p=296 To a photographer, light is the matter that gives shape to the world. Read]]>

Light is to a photographer the substance that gives shape to the world.”

The story has it that on the first day, the Divine created all matter. He then wanted to create light, so he could sit back and admire the work he had just accomplished.

Light is what makes our world visible. It outlines rocky capes, bathes valleys, and sparkles at the tip of waves. It lends its warmth to autumn, and gets pale in the winter. It wakes us up in the morning, and takes us back to sleep at night.

I sometimes find myself in proper awe of these celestial spectacles. I am reminded that light isn’t of a terrestrial nature, it is a cosmic force. It reaches us all the way from a star, that fireball hanging in the sky a hundred fifty million kilometers away. Without its warmth and clarity, life wouldn’t be possible on Earth, and of course, there would be no photography.

Over the course of my adventures, I have familiarized myself with its many moods, and made it into an ally. Light is the muse, the source, the carrier, and the one from which, when it disappears, I await the return.


Science itself has had a hard time understanding the nature of light, for it is both wave and matter. At the heart of quantum physics, it is quite possible that mankind’s next great breakthrough will come from the study of light. According to the theory of special relativity enunciated by Albert Einstein in 1905, light has the fastest achievable speed in the universe: moving at 300,000 kilometers per second, it takes eight minutes to travel the distance between the Sun and the Earth. ◼

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Heroes in the making https://portraitsinacity.com/supersonnages/ Wed, 24 Jul 2019 19:39:41 +0000 http://portraitsinacity.com/?p=247 Read]]>

Comiccon is a theater in which everyone becomes author and actor of their own character.»

These portraits of cosplayers were photographed on medium format analog film during the 2019 and 2022 editions of Montreal Comiccon.

images © 2019-2022 Rico Michel

“She slips into a character’s skin like one puts on a new dress; already, behind the looking glass, appears a version of the world in which everything still is possible.”

What is your superpower?

Comiccon is held over three days at Palais des Congrès in downtown Montréal. Saturday is Masquerade day: dozens of cosplayers take the stage and participate in the best homemade costume contest, where workmanship and originality are rewarded.

Cosplayers spend the whole day in costume, chatting with fans, posing for a multitude of cameras, and exchanging their Instagram handles. When in need of a break, the heroes come out to a small park behind the Palais. That’s when the masks fall, so to speak, and where a keen photographer can catch a glimpse of the people behind these larger than life characters.

2023 Exhibition

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An artist’s headspace https://portraitsinacity.com/la-tete-de-l-artiste/ Mon, 01 Jul 2019 04:00:22 +0000 http://portraitsinacity.com/?p=200 Read]]>

Photographers are realists,
artists are mystics.”

This series portrays significant Montreal artists and their creative environment. Painters, sculptors, writers and musicians are photographed on classic analog film.

images © 2018-2020 Rico Michel

Beyond a faithful documentation of the times, the project is interested in the artist as an oracle, interpreter and messenger of a reality which escapes rational thinking. Like a demiurge, the artist is momentarily invested with the heroic power of creation.

The serie’s photographic approach is a combination of classic portraiture and documentary photography. These are environmental portraits, in which the photographer foremost seeks to grasp the deep nature of his subject, but also depicts them in their immediate personal environment, adding narrative elements to the representation.

The layout of the workspace and the tools of the trade, while being essentially functional elements, are also revealing of an intimate staging which contributes to the portrait of the artist, as do their physical appearance or the work itself.

The portraits are taken on classic analog medium format film (6×7). The negative is exposed, developed, then scanned and processed in a digital darkroom. Finally, the chosen images are printed on light-sensitive photographic paper. This hybrid approach, part physical, part digital, allows for very large prints while also maintaining the rich, deep tonalities provided by analog processes.

Upcoming exhibition

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Portraits https://portraitsinacity.com/portraits/ Sun, 30 Jun 2019 14:00:14 +0000 http://portraitsinacity.com/?p=174 Read]]>

Gallery

Mephisto Bates
Mephisto Bates — Portrait of painter Mephisto Bates in his Hochelaga-Maisonneuve atelier, in Montreal, Quebec (2019).
François Alfred Mignault
François Alfred Mignault — Portrait of neon blower François Alfred Mignault in his atelier, in Montreal, Quebec (2019).
Thierry Dimanche
Thierry Dimanche — Portrait of writer Thierry Dimanche on a Saint-Denis Street rooftop, in Montreal, Quebec (2021).
Armand Vaillancourt
Armand Vaillancourt — Armand Vaillancourt unveiling his sculpture in honor of Pierre Falardeau, in Montreal, Quebec (2019).
Olaf Gundel
Olaf Gundel — Portrait of musician Olaf Gundel with a cigar box guitar, in Montreal, Quebec (2022).
Harri Kuldip
Harri Saeso — Portrait of painter Harri Saeso at Marché Ventura dépanneur in Montreal, Quebec (2019).
Bertrand Laverdure et Catherine Filteau
Bertrand et Catherine — Portrait of poet Bertrand Laverdure and illustrator Catherine Filteau on Mount Royal (2021).
Eddy Blake Eaton
Blake’s Solo — Double bass player Eddy Blake performs with his rockabilly trio at Quai des Brumes in Montreal, Quebec (2018).
Chloé Surprenant
Chloé Surprenant — Portrait of painter Chloé Surprenant in her trailer in Montreal, Quebec (2018).
Loverboy Sarah
Loverboy Sarah — Portrait of Sarah, guitar player of punk band Unwanted Noise, in Montreal, Quebec (2019).
Maude Veilleux
Maude Veilleux — Portrait of poet Maude Veilleux in the middle of a fountain, in Montreal, Quebec (2018).

images © 2018-2023 Rico Michel

Portfolio – Portraits

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