As a painter by training, an adventurous visual artist happy to try his hand at sculpture and installation art, photography is not a discipline for Thibault Hazelzet. But at the same time he states plainly that the work is there: in these variable Diasec mounted formats, the result of a recording made with a view camera. So it is not so much photography per se as “photographic work”. What is to be made out is unmistakably the product of a lens. You will find it has types of aberration such as blurriness and distortions, which are a part of our visual culture. So “things” have indeed been recorded but without any desire to watch them having been implemented. Such technical casualness bordering on negligence with respect to the optical system is due to a deeper intention: Thibault Hazelzet does not change his lenses to meet any particular need, he acts in a pragmatic and intuitive way, adjusting or misadjusting depending on the point that he wants to show in focus, or on the contrary depending on the areas he wishes to leave fuzzy. He has a sensual approach to the camera lens. Talk to him about lighting, you will get the same answer: he is not looking for any effect through the lighting of his things, although he knows that you can obtain whatever effect you like. Ultimately, for Thibault Hazelzet, photography is never as good as when it is reduced to a kind of archaic use: an optical impression.
