Born near Paris, I grew up surrounded by books and images at my parents’ news agency. My dad collected vintage cameras and Magnum magazines. I was however more interested in music for the majority of my childhood. I played the piano from the age of five and only quit 15 years later when I went overseas. After completing my degree in International Marketing in the South of France, I moved to the West Indies in 2001, marking the start of a decade of extensive travel. I have since lived in Dublin and Sydney, where I currently reside.
I progressively developed a taste for photography to document my experiences and remember the people I’ve met, the places I’ve visited and the things I’ve done. I have traveled to nearly 30 countries and I really believe photographs are more powerful than words. Every time I go back home, in France, I show my pictures to my family and friends instead of telling irrelevant stories.
I have been deliberately using film instead of digital photography for the past few years as I feel emotionally amputated in front of a computer. In my opinion a photograph represents a moment and I don’t want software to change the color, the composition or the mood of my image. The technical side of photography holds little interest for me as I yearn for imperfections. I don’t mind blurry or grainy pictures and flare to some extent. I also feel more comfortable with analog cameras than with heavy and bulky digital ones. I actually never leave home without one of my cameras in my bag.
Documentary is definitely the photographic genre I am the most fond of. I chose to specialize in this style at the Australian Centre for Photography in Sydney a couple of years ago. Black and white photography is also a very intriguing art form to me. I guess Dad’s admiration for Willy Ronis and Cartier-Bresson had an influence on my penchant for photography. There are way too many photographers that are a source of inspiration but most of them have the majority of their work in black and white: Sebastiao Salgado, Cristian Movila, Neal Casal, Mimi Chacarova, Yves Laland, Roger Ballen, Renaud Philippe…I also try to go to as many exhibitions as possible, especially in Paris, and read online/print magazines to discover talented emerging artists.
My aim is to develop my own rolls of film in the near future. I love the idea of being part of the process from start to finish and being able to control the result. I have been really busy working on different projects between Eastern Europe, Paris and Sydney for the last two years though and didn’t really take the time to learn. I am also looking at organizing one or two exhibitions, thinking about a book and hopefully completing a series I started in the US. I can never leave my suitcase for too long and although I enjoy Sydney, analog photography can be quite challenging.
Links:
Website: http://www.agnessamour.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/agnes-samour-photography/127933720563034
Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/agnessamour
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