The Chantiers de l'Atlantique seen from the inside in a new photo book with poetic texts

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You probably don't know it, but you know the photos of Bernard Biger. Since 1998, his eye has traveled the corridors of Chantiers de l'Atlantique for the communications department of the company in Saint-Nazaire (Loire-Atlantique). You may not know it anymore either, but you know the words of Véronique Couzinou. The author of Unusual dictionary of liners also follows shipbuilding news to The Sailor. Two lovers of the Chantiers de l'Atlantique brought together for a beautiful book, A photographic journey.

The idea of ​​working together

For a journey, there must be a departure. For this trip, the two talents had to meet: Bernard's eye, Véronique's pen. Almost so obvious, that the idea hatched in both minds at the same time.

I thought about it during the exhibition of Bernard's photos on the seafront [en 2022, ndlr]. A week later, he called me to tell me about his project.

His project: some 150 photos selected by him, “with different themes, colors, atmospheres. I told myself there was something to be done.”

Construction stages like stopovers on a journey

In the absence of a cruise to paradise islands, the journey takes the reader to each construction site which leads to the birth of a giant of the seas.

We were careful to show all the workshops, without making it an engineering work.

Beyond the sheet metal curves and red porticos, it was necessary to show the human adventure that shipbuilding represents. Men and women in blue who appear, even tiny, in each of the photos.

“Little moments of grace”

All this gives an exploration with sometimes unexpected stops, of which Bernard Biger highlights the beauty and the unusual, and Véronique Couzinou, the poetry.

“Bernard knows the little moments of grace,” underlines the author, forgetting to say that it is his texts which exacerbate the flavor. This is the case of the blue hourthis moment when day and night merge, sublimating the lines of the shipyard: the photographer captures it, the author gives it life, summoning Françoise Hardy or Julien Gracq.

A preface by Laurent Castaing

And the management of Chantiers de l’Atlantique? They gave their agreement “very quickly”, Laurent Castaing even signing the preface of the book. “Be careful, this is not not an order book », Specify the authors. This did not prevent the company from offering the book to each of its employees. History that, during this trip, they rediscover “their” construction sites.

The Shipyards of the Atlantic, A photographic journey222 pages, editions of La Martinière. €35. On sale in Saint-Nazaire bookstores.

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