He took this photo in June 2023, after a long battle by SOPFEU firefighters against fires that ravaged an entire section of forest in northern Lac-Saint-Jean.
The shot is bare. An auxiliary sapper, standing on a rock, takes a break after a grueling day of patrol, his gaze towards the horizon. Around him, bare trunks stand in the middle of a forest reduced to ashes.
PHOTO PROVIDED BY CHARLES-FRÉDÉRICK OUELLET
The award-winning photo of Charles-Frédérick Ouellet
This photo earned Charles-Frédérick Ouellet an award at the World Press Photo 2024, whose works are on display until October 14 in the Old Port of Montreal. He is the first Quebecer in a quarter century to receive such a distinction — the ultimate international accolade in the world of photography.
I met the 43-year-old Saguenay native this week at the Olimpico café in Mile End.
I wanted to hear the story behind his winning image. But also, to talk with him about the meaning that this photo has taken on, in the eyes of the public, at a time when all the elements of nature seem to be unleashed at the same time, in Quebec as elsewhere in the world.
I think it speaks to the exhaustion of nature, and it speaks to the exhaustion of the people who have worked all summer fighting the fires. And then when you put both of them together like that, the image becomes something that is perhaps a little more dramatic.
Charles-Frédérick Ouellet
“The scale of the person, very small, who positions himself like that above the forest, it can be metaphorical, he continues. Humans need at this moment to question their position in the ecosystem, to say: “I am not above everything, I am part of this ecosystem.”
The effect of the photo is powerful, enough to have convinced the World Press Photo jury to select it from among 61,000 works received for the North and Central America zone.
But Charles-Frédérick Ouellet assures me that the intention behind his forest series was absolutely not “moralizing.”
Rather, it was part of a documentary approach that began several years ago, which gave rise to a striking photo report published in the Globe and Mail in June 20231. “It’s a bit of a coincidence. I had been working on the fire cycle for three years.”
The years 2021 and 2022 had been relatively quiet for wildfires. There was little meaningful photographic material to be had from them, he told me.
But in 2023, it burned practically from one end of the country to the other. A year when sad records of destruction were shattered. Charles-Frédérick Ouellet received training to be able to assist firefighters from the Société de protection des forêts contre le feu (SOPFEU) and made several deployments with them in Saguenay–Lac-Saint-Jean.
PHOTO PATRICK SANFAÇON, THE PRESS
Maxime Bergeron talks with Charles-Frédérick Ouellet.
His award-winning photo was taken at the scene of a recently brought under control fire near Saint-Ludger-de-Milot, north of Lac Saint-Jean. An exhausting patrol for the SOPFEU firefighters, as we can clearly understand by looking at the photo.
“I was already photographing the regeneration of nature through the fire cycle, that was our entry point,” he explains. “And after that, there was the idea of seeing the position of the human being within the cycle of the natural ecosystem.”
Since his World Press Photo award, he has been asked dozens of times to explain his image — myself included. It is rather the opposite that interests him.
“I’m much more interested in hearing people talk about this image,” he says. “The problem is that every time we’ve talked about it, people say to me: ‘Describe your image to us.’ And then I’m like: ‘Holy crap, I’ve already made the image.’ It can’t be more literal than that! I make an image, I’m not going to describe it any more.”
But the photographer still gives me a little context, in his precise language tinged with the accent of his native Chicoutimi.
“I am passionate about the history of photography, and I often make nods in my photography to other historical periods,” he explains.
Of course, with an image like that, you know, you can easily echo the end of a battle in the Vietnam War, the Second World War, with the drape of the linen falling, the monochrome image, the curve of the character.
Charles-Frédérick Ouellet
If the question of the “overexploitation” of natural resources is at the heart of his approach, Charles-Frédérick Ouellet notes a big gap between the reality on the ground and the perception of these industries in the city.
PHOTO PATRICK SANFAÇON, THE PRESS
Rather than describing his award-winning photo, Charles-Frédérick Ouellet prefers that it spark discussions.
The fact that he divides his life between Quebec and Saguenay, when he is not photojournalizing abroad, gives him a privileged position to analyze both sides of the coin.
There are a thousand and one shades of green.
“In the region, you realize that everyone works for forestry companies, for reforestation companies, for forest protection companies,” he explains to me. “And it’s the same people who do all these jobs, people who are extremely knowledgeable about nature, who are concerned about its revitalization, who use it for their leisure activities, for hunting, for fishing, and who work in it all year long.”
After that, when you get a memo from Montreal saying that we have to take care of our forests, it’s like: you go camping there once a year, what do you know about forest management?
Charles-Frédérick Ouellet
Charles-Frédérick Ouellet is having a successful year. His images have been published in, among others, The Press, The DutyTHE Washington Post and in a series of books and exhibitions. Other projects are already taking shape: photo reports in Bosnia and Georgia and an incursion with the Canadian army to address “territorial sovereignty”.
He will, again and again, take on the role of “observer”. He will leave it to the public to draw the interpretation of their choice.
Unfiltered questionnaire
Coffee and me: Cortado or macchiato, always ready to chat freely over a coffee
People I would like to bring together around a table: One-on-one with Eugène Atget, because I have a lot of questions for him!
A trip that makes me dream: Russia
The quality I look for in others: Listening
Who is Charles-Frédérick Ouellet?
- Born in Chicoutimi in 1981. Trained at the Cégep de Matane in photography and holds a master’s degree in visual arts from Université Laval.
- The force of the elements, the movement of populations and “contemporary odysseys” are at the heart of his work. His photo reports, published by several major media outlets, have taken him to China, Louisiana and the Balkans, among other places.
- His photo featuring auxiliary firefighter Théo Dagnaud, taken in a forest in Lac-Saint-Jean in June 2023, earned him an award for best “single image” at the World Press Photo, North and Central America.
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