It is the crossing of a vast territory, made of nature and asphalt, of forests and architecture, of watersides and bar interiors, that the pages of To Winter There (Éditions Loco) by photographer Charles-Frédérick Ouellet. All in black and white, the images compose a story of geography, but also of history, that behind a North America located between Labrador and Louisiana. Or, as explained on the back cover, between 56° 8′ and 33° 35′ north latitude.
This area, as precise as it is vague, was determined by an idea: to follow in the footsteps of Louis Jolliet (1645-1700), wilderness runner, trader and, above all, considered the first explorer born in New France (and not in Europe) . Jolliet will have come a long way, between the search for the mouth of the Mississippi, with Father Marquette, and missions on the North Shore.
“In 1673, we read on the back cover of the book published in Paris, Louis Jolliet crossed the watershed linking the lake to the great waters of the winding river which flows towards the south. »
Jolliet is the primary inspiration of Charles-Frédérick Ouellet, his “starting premise” around what could have been an investigation into French-speaking identity in America. “I really appreciate the somewhat forgotten characters,” he says, joined by videoconference in a café in Quebec. When I lived in Petit-Champlain, my door was next to where he was born. The original project of this [est] a little anecdotal. »
Charles-Frédérick Ouellet? He is the Quebec photographer who has certainly been the most talked about in recent times. At the beginning of April, to be precise: with a photo of the fires which ravaged Quebec forests in 2023, he obtained one of the prizes of the very popular World Press Photo (WPP). The scene, which shows a firefighter standing on a rock and scanning the horizon, earned him honor in the Single Images category, North and Central America section.
It’s a regional award, of course, but a WPP “means a lot”. “North America is all the major newspapers, the Washington PostTHE New York Times, media that have strong backs, notes the humble freelancer, who occasionally publishes in the pages of your daily newspaper. What’s nice is the international recognition, especially that. As if they were legitimizing my outlook, my way of working. »
The way of someone who pivots between documentary photography and an author’s gaze is one of time. Long time. When it comes to taking images only, To Winter There extends over seven years (2015-2022). The WPP photo stems from a project undertaken in 2021 which required training as a “forest fighter”. “I’ve often been asked: ‘How do you get an image like that?’ It’s not “an image like that”. These are years of working in the field. [C’est] a more oblique project, with different [techniques]thermography, low resolution images, reporting, installation…”
His gaze, which is expressed in black and white — except when the Globe and Mailone of the financial partners of the project on the lights, asks him for color -, delights in an “organization of the frame, the lights, the shapes” which is not justified, except by creative freedom.
The photo of the firefighter climbing on a rock, an image that didn’t even appear in the Toronto newspaper — “it’s one of the last ones I took; it arrived after” publication, says the photographer, almost apologizing -, corresponds to the overall program: “getting away from the description of the fires, talking about the state of exhaustion, orienting the narration around images which are not presented anywhere.
Without limits
Fourth photographic book by Charles-Frédérick Ouellet, To Winter There is of this ilk, that of not corresponding to any preconceived idea. If he wanted to follow Louis Jolliet’s journey, he also claims to have wanted to break away from it. “The idea was not to imitate him, but to see [le continent] in a northern axis rather than in an east-west axis,” says the man who subsequently wanted to confuse his source regions. The sequence of images, not very chronological, does not allow us to know whether it is Quebec or Louisiana. No legend accompanies them.
If we can guess places here and there (a Southern landscape devastated by a hurricane) or a sign identifies a heritage building in Illinois (the Pere Marquette Hotel), Charles-Frédérick Ouellet’s idea was other. “It was really a historical concern. [Je voulais] trying to see the landscape beyond political borders, to see who lives there, who lived there, what the relationship is to the territory, what shapes identity,” he says.
The native of Chicoutimi is not fooled. The North American territory, especially that south of 49e parallel, is inscribed in the history of photography. To Winter There is somehow indebted to the masterpiece of Robert Frank, The Americans (1958), undoubtedly the best-known photographic book. In an interview, Charles-Frédérick Ouellet admits to having winked, in addition to Frank, to William Eggleston and Saul Leiter, although pioneers of color, but who also traveled the roads and streets chasing images.
“I don’t want to be brutal,” he said. The Americans have appropriated the question of territory, of movement, through photography. Whereas, for me, the relationship with the territory belongs to us a little, more than to the people who live further south. »
His book does not aim to make such a clarification, but to report on a very personal experience of the kilometers swallowed over the years. A photo of birds in flight can be an emblem, just as much as images of shop windows or the sight of an individual lost under grains of snow (or film). Along the way, the forty-year-old photographer followed his instinct rather than his premise.
“I dropped the idea of the explorer, because it still brought back the conquest of a territory, whereas it is more about the experience, the shared knowledge of places,” explains the who, in his spare time, hunts in the company of Innus.
As for his report on forest fires or a previous project around navigation on the St. Lawrence River (the book The shipwreck, 2017), Charles-Frédérick Ouellet lets himself be impregnated by the subject he has to photograph. In all these cases, and more than ever in that of To Winter There, movement is a driving force, a reason. “There is something of the order of mobility in the act of photographing, an act which is volatile. When you combine history with that, obviously, it gives a bit of this universe where past and present [se retrouvent]. »
The book of 82 images is supplemented by a text printed on a separate sheet. It is signed by Guy Sioui-Durand, renowned sociologist of the art of the Wendat (Huron) nation and who is interested, according to the photographer, in “circulation in the territory”. Published in France in February, To Winter There finally arrives in Quebec. A short-term exhibition (at Belgo, until Sunday April 28) accompanies the event.