the essential
For four years, the Buzéquais has been carrying out numerous photographic projects that he recently exhibited in Barbaste. Photos that were very popular with the public present for the inauguration.
August 29, 2024 will remain a special day for Buzéquais Éric Artifoni. At the Golf d’Albret, in Barbaste, he exhibited his work alone for the first time. Inevitably, there was some stress while waiting for the public’s reaction. But very quickly, the first congratulations. And the first orders too. At ease, the man who seriously took up photography four years ago was able to explain the genesis of his work and his personal ethics when he turned on his camera.
Eric Artifoni, in Albret and Lot-et-Garonne, is a name that has long been associated with rugby and woodcock hunting. A player and then coach in many clubs, he is a man of passion. It was rugby that led him to photography, about twenty years ago. “It was when I was playing in Lavardac. One evening, for training, I brought a camera. I photographed the session, the game and the men. And I loved the result.”
“I like to showcase my territory”
This impression never left him. And it was in the middle of confinement that he decided to take up the camera again “more intensively”. “During the famous hour of freedom, I took my camera. Then everything happened one after the other.” His photos seduce his loved ones. Including Catherine De Luca, who runs the Galerie Générale in Agen, and encourages him to persevere. “He still has the photographer’s eye,” she smiles.
Eric Artifoni doesn’t shoot randomly. He has his specialties, his signature. On the one hand, the landscapes of Albret. “It’s my country! I’m from here. I like to showcase my territory.” He notably took an unpublished photograph of the Château de Buzet. “It’s never been taken from that angle. The people of Buzéquais love it very much.”
Pleasing others is the leitmotif of the former rugby player, who was still coaching the Lavardac-Barbaste club last season. “I enjoy taking these photos. I see people enjoying looking at them. And I enjoy seeing them enjoying themselves. It’s a virtuous circle!”
Eric Artifoni’s other trademark is his taste for precise gestures. “It takes the photo out of its context and puts it in another. It’s often telling.” In this spirit, he has led a project on ironwork, or even on golf.
Another peculiarity is that the Buzéquais barely retouches these photographs. “A little contrast or black if necessary, that’s all.”
Three days of waiting to take the photo he had imagined
On the other hand, he works a lot before the moment T. “Before going there, in my head, I know exactly what photo I want to bring back.” That’s how he spent three days in a hide, waiting for a peregrine falcon to come and land on a perch he had set up on the side of a hill in Albret. “It finally arrived and spent four hours with me. I took 600 images, including the one I wanted: the blurred wings when it flies away but the face super clear.” The result is striking.
In his work, Eric Artifoni uses both black and white and color. Or both. The goal is to convey maximum emotion in his photography.
Today, the man who is responsible for a hydraulic equipment store in Damazan is completely fulfilled in his passion. Projects are swarming in his head. And the success of his Barbat exhibition is not discouraging him, quite the contrary.
