J’avais posé le monde sur la table – Gérard Rondeau

Dense and complete work of an avid and curious man, of a committed photographer, I had put the world on the table, was published on the occasion of a retrospective exhibition in Reims, shortly before its disappearance. It is both a travel journal and an intimate diary. Photographer of the moment, he captures the poetry of a snowy landscape like the drama of refugees from Kosovo in Albania.

A man anchored in the present, sensitive to the world, his gaze is benevolent and without judgment, and his images are timeless. He knows how to catch details that tell everything, the looks of simple people or the poor, their silences.

His black-and-white photographs with powerful contrasts, often taken in medium format, move far beyond their perfect composition or the beauty of their blurs. Rarely has a photographer been able to speak so well about men, their history, landscapes, their geography, and the small things of their daily lives.

His portraits, especially of the greatest artists of our time, writers, painters, musicians, are sublime of delicacy.

And if Gérard Rondeau was, for ever, this tree with a solid trunk, well anchored to the ground, which he photographed in the Marne…