Dominique Philippe Bonnet
- May 11
- 4 min read
Dominique Philippe Bonnet is a French photographer now based near Poitiers. He first walked into a darkroom as a kid and still remembers the smell of the chemicals and the red light. He has worked in black and white for decades and has no plans to leave it. He moved to London in the mid-eighties, where he started exhibiting, and his photographs have been published in the British Journal of Photography, Silvershotz, Musée Magazine and others. His current series is called PAUSES, and it does exactly what the name says.
Q: You were introduced to the darkroom very young. What do you remember from that time, and what stuck?
A: I was introduced to the darkroom at a very young age, almost like stepping into a secret territory. What I remember first is the smell of the chemicals, the red light, the almost sacred silence. There was something magical about the gradual appearance of the image on paper, as if the world were revealing itself slowly.
What stayed with me isn't just the technique, but the idea that photography is a form of patient revelation. An image doesn't give itself instantly, it has to be built, it has to be earned. There is also that particular, almost irreducible sense of time inherent to analog practice. Each step imposes a rhythm that forces you to slow down.
During these phases, the photographer reflects on the image, explores its possibilities, refines decisions, anticipates tonal outcomes. This extended time, common to many visual art practices, becomes part of the creative process itself.
Q: PAUSES is entirely in black and white. You've worked in black and white for decades. What keeps you there?
A: Black and white established itself very early on for me and has never really left. There's something self-evident in the absence of color—it strips reality down to its essentials, revealing structure, light, and rhythm. It's a language that feels closer to memory and sensation than to description.
Over time, it has become less an aesthetic choice than a way of being in the world. I'm not trying to translate reality as it is, but as it is felt. And black and white also carries something timeless—it seems to exist beyond any specific era, giving the image a deeper, more enduring resonance.
Q: The three images in this series, Rest, Silence, Quiet, are a girl curled up, a plate on a table, a horse with its eyes closed. How do you find those moments?
A: These moments aren't really "found," they're recognized. It requires a certain state of attention, being open to what is barely there, to simple, almost unnoticed things: a posture, a quality of light, a suspended instant.
In PAUSES, I'm drawn to those in-between states, when the world seems to withdraw slightly: a girl curled into herself, a plate left in quiet stillness, a horse with its eyes closed. These are not dramatic moments, but interior ones, where time loosens and something more subtle can emerge. What interests me is this density of silence, this tension between presence and absence. Each image becomes a space of suspension, a threshold rather than a statement. Photographing, in that sense, is about preserving that fragile balance, allowing the image to exist without forcing it, without breaking its quiet resonance.
Q: You've named Cartier-Bresson, Kertész, Callahan, Ralph Gibson as influences. That's a strong lineage. Who do you feel closest to now?
A: These are important lineages, of course, and they still accompany me. But over time, the relationship shifts. I'm no longer trying to position myself in relation to them, but rather to listen to what, in me, has been shaped by their way of seeing.
What these references share, for me, is a deep sense of composition, this idea that every element within the frame must be placed with care and coherence, nothing left to chance.
If I had to put it differently, I'd say I now feel closer to a certain idea of photography than to specific names: a quiet, introspective approach where form and emotion are inseparable. That said, the rigor of Henri Cartier-Bresson and the formal freedom of Ralph Gibson remain very present touchstones.
Q: You moved to London in the mid-eighties and now you're near Poitiers. Does the place you live affect what you photograph?
A: Yes, inevitably. The places we live in shape the way we see, sometimes in very subtle ways. London in the 1980s was a dense, restless city, with an almost brutal energy. It fostered a more instinctive, more tense approach to photography. Today, near Poitiers, the rhythm is different.
Time feels more stretched, spaces more open, silence more present. This naturally comes through in the images—they may feel more introspective, slower. But at the end of the day, it's not so much the subject that changes, but the way of looking at it.
Q: You've been building PAUSES for a while now. Where is the series heading?
A: PAUSES is a body of work that unfolds slowly, without a fully defined direction. I don't have an end point in mind, but rather a feeling I'm trying to deepen. The series progresses through resonances, through echoes between images. What matters to me is staying true to this idea of suspension, withdrawal, and silence.
It may move toward even greater reduction, something almost minimal. Or, on the contrary, it may reveal unexpected variations around the same core idea. What is certain is that I don't want to force it. It has to continue developing at its own rhythm, like a breath.
