Carte Blanche to François Dourlen
We gave carte blanche to the very inspired François Dourlen, with the aim of sharing with us his vision of his Cotentin. A personal vision put to music by the talented Marc Euvrie [The Eye Of Time] who has created an original piece for the occasion, a sensitive testimony to his attachment to his territory.
Who is François Dourlen?
This literature and history teacher from a Cherbourg high school is living a fairy tale, of which only new technologies have the secret.
While walking his daughter in a stroller, one day the idea came to him to take photos of the surroundings of Cherbourg. The image virus quickly took hold of him and as the days went by he came up with the idea of humorous photos put together by inserting, using his smartphone, a photo within the photo. Cult scenes from cinema are thus intertwined with our daily landscapes... Superman and the Aristocats clung to the railway which runs along the Montagne du Roule, the Lion King dominates La Roche-qui-Pend, and the mythical scene from Titanic seems take place in front of a small sailboat stranded on a beach in Cotentin! In a few weeks, these photos will go around the world, covered by magazines and television stations around the world. Netflix, Disney, Canal Plus are competing for François, who responds to certain orders but... not to the sirens of glory. He keeps his job as a teacher in Cherbourg, “to be able to continue to live my passion with pleasure, without pressure”.
Today, my great happiness is to give back to this region a little of everything it gives me on a daily basis. I try to include as many photos involving Cotentin as possible in my orders. As soon as I have some time with friends, I head to Barfleur, Gatteville or Goury. It's really the beauty of these landscapes and these lights that made me want to take photos and suggested these ideas. But it's much more than that: this Cotentin offers me a balance with which I can constantly recharge my batteries to preserve the meaning that I want to give to this work and to life!
The Cotentin Urban Community interviewed François Dourlen
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