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The Guardians
Esther
“I’m sitting here alone now. It gives me a purpose. I get up in the morning and I come here. I have something to do. Most of my friends my age which is 85, 86, 84 give or take, they get up in the morning and say: ‘What am I gonna do today?’. They have to look for things to do. I don’t have to look, I have to come down to the store. And I meet people, I talk to people, I take orders and I enjoy it very very much. So, as long as I’m able physically and mentally, thats what it’s gonna be.”
Marie
Marie is a passionate collector. She runs a store that contains nostalgic objects that belonged to her late husband. You can find a lot of objects from our grandparents’ generation that are no longer made today. Primarily from the 50s’. This promotes fun and is a nice place to go to stop time. To disconnect from the present, from everything that is fast-paced, like new technologies. These are objects that elicit happiness. In a simple way. Her shop was opened in 1978 by her husband, who died a few years ago. I took this picture only six months ago, and the store no longer exists. I heard Marie had sold it very shortly after my visit. It triggered something in me. She had given me a tour of a part of the store that customers do not get to see. You could feel the love behind this accumulation of objects. It felt as if I were in her home.
David
Meet David, from Montreal. His first year at Burning Man was in 1996, and his last time in 2010. Seven times total. He is 68 years old and he has been around the world more than once. He considers Burning Man to be an experience unequaled. He will go again in 2014 to celebrate his 70th birthday.
Birdman
The Birdman is this colorful, slightly hunchbacked, 70 year-old character, who openly says he wants to take our money in exchange for music and fun. CDs and audiocassettes are buried and piled into his lair. He doesn’t own a computer, a cell phone, or a cash register. He solely relies on his visual memory. He made a fortune on Wall Street when he was 35 years old and enjoyed it up to when he was 57, before opening his shop Rainbow Music 13 years ago. He bemoans the fact that these small neighbourhood shops are closing to make room for Starbucks, Subway, Duane Reade and other big chains. The neighbourhood is not the same and he knows that one day it’ll be his turn to put the key under the door.
http://the-guardians.info/stories
THE GUARDIANS was born from my desire to document and pay tribute to these people, these “guardians of urban temples” that we meet everyday without really noticing.
My approach is based on a principle of hazardous perambulation in every city that I visit. The initial idea is to have no more benchmark and enter spontaneously in places where the visual attraction is strong. I like to see every city as a maze in which I enjoy getting lost and finding these treasures.
These places are sometimes magical, overloaded with elements, colours and stories, guarded by these characters who are sometimes touching, funny, quirky, and at times frightening.
The photos that I take are often the only memory that this “Guardian” will have of him/herself in theirdaily environment. This photo can be the only visual record of the existence of this place, the only photographic memory.
People pay less and less attention to their environment. They are always in a hurry, they don’t take the time to spend time with one another. Unfortunately, these places will one day no longer be around. This is one of the reasons that compelled me to want to document these “guardians”.
So far, I’ve visited 9 cities (Montreal, New York, Las Vegas, Paris, Vienna, Berlin, London, Amsterdam, Beirut) and met nearly 250 Guardians.
My approach is based on a principle of hazardous perambulation in every city that I visit. The initial idea is to have no more benchmark and enter spontaneously in places where the visual attraction is strong. I like to see every city as a maze in which I enjoy getting lost and finding these treasures.
These places are sometimes magical, overloaded with elements, colours and stories, guarded by these characters who are sometimes touching, funny, quirky, and at times frightening.
The photos that I take are often the only memory that this “Guardian” will have of him/herself in theirdaily environment. This photo can be the only visual record of the existence of this place, the only photographic memory.
People pay less and less attention to their environment. They are always in a hurry, they don’t take the time to spend time with one another. Unfortunately, these places will one day no longer be around. This is one of the reasons that compelled me to want to document these “guardians”.
So far, I’ve visited 9 cities (Montreal, New York, Las Vegas, Paris, Vienna, Berlin, London, Amsterdam, Beirut) and met nearly 250 Guardians.
http://the-guardians.info/about
https://www.behance.net/gallery/15923175/The-Guardians
The rest are at the links.
