Wrought-iron craftsman, photographer and father to six children, Alain Laboile started a family album in 2007, at the age of 39. His“La Famille”series was, at first, a private treasure. This self-taught photographer who only possesses one picture of his own childhood simply wished to record the passing of time with his family.
The black abd white family album quickly goes beyond the private setting and seduces the web. Tens of thousands of internet users all over the world await, daily, the new images of this French“tribe”insolently living on the edge of the world. In December 2012, the New York Times celebrates Alain Laboile’s talent. The first exhibitions ensue in Japan and the United States, then in France in 2014 when the“La Famille”series joined the Musée français de la photographie collection .
About ‘La Famille-Color’:
I’m a father of six. Through my photographic work I celebrate and document my family life : a life on the edge of the world, where intemporality and the universality of childhood meet. Day to day I create a family album that constitues a legacy that I will pass on to my children. My work reflects our way of life, revolving around their childhood. My photographs will be the testimony of that.
In a way my approach can be considered similar to the one of an ethnologist. Though my work is deeply personal, it is also accessible, addressing human nature and allowing the viewer to enter my world and reflect on their own childhoods. Fed everyday and shared with the world via the internet, my photographic production has become a mean of communication, leading to a questionning about freedom, nudity, being and having.
The color project fits into the same process as “La Famille” : snapshots of a daily life in the countryside. However, for some of these seized moments, a color treatment appeared as the manifest choice.
