As a community built for photographers, we love celebrating the connections Flickr helps spark, whether friendships, collaborations, mentorships or any other bonds formed through a shared love of photography. That’s exactly what drew us to the story of Christopher Evans and Juliette Melia, whose Flickr connection many years ago blossomed into real life collaboration – a gallery exhibition featuring Christopher’s work which opened this past week.
Their friendship began online through genuine appreciation for art, film photography and Holga cameras. Both remain active on Flickr to this day. Christopher, based in Canada, has continued his work as an analog photographer while Juliette, based in France, curates exhibitions for HCE Galerie in Sant-Denis. We asked them to share their Flickr story and how it led to this exciting exhibition.
Flickr: In an era when you were both active on a digital platform, what draws you to analog photography?
Juliette: Flickr gave me the opportunity to share my photographs with a wide audience, whether digital or analog. I was child-free at the time and spent a lot of time shooting, of course, but also scanning, editing, and retouching. Even when scanned, there is something special about an analog photograph: the grain, the colors, a little bit of magic. Most of the time, other Flickr users react very positively to a scanned analog image. They feel the love and hence so do you!
Christopher: I like the feeling of developing negatives and making prints. In an age when so many things are artificial it’s nice to have something real. Vintage cameras are also a lot more fun to use. (I just wish film wasn’t so expensive.)
Flickr: You two first connected on Flickr – what was it about each other’s presence on Flickr that led to this friendship?
Juliette: I think Christopher first noticed my nudes (wasn’t he the only one!), but we really connected over our shared love of film photography and Holga cameras.
Christopher: Juliette followed me and we hit it off. We’ve had a great friendship ever since.
Flickr: What do you hope someone who is not familiar with Christopher’s work takes away from walking through this exhibit?
Juliette: Oh, I want people to take away many things. The look and feel of a faraway city and its transformations over the years. The quiet exoticism of Canadian store signs. And yet, even when separated by an ocean and several time zones, there are similarities between Chris’s Vancouver and my Saint-Denis, where I exhibit. I want people to become aware of how poetic it is to photograph your own shadow. Especially if you wear cowboy hats. Ideally, I would also like visitors to move beyond the nostalgia suggested by the exhibition’s name and return to film photography. I personally miss it so much, I would like to inspire people to go back to it, even for a short while.
Christopher: The photos in this exhibit were taken with plastic and pinhole cameras, simple and inexpensive. You don’t need expensive equipment to make interesting photos.
Flickr: When you look at this body of work through the lens of your long friendship, does that change how you approach curation?
Juliette: Curating Christopher’s work was no small task. He has thousands and thousands of photographs, many of which I discovered as he uploaded them, and there were so many more that could have been included in the exhibition. We had to make choices: representing the city, its pavements, its trees, its weird signs… And the iconic cow-boy hat shadow self-portraits of course!
Christopher: I’m lucky to have Juliette curate this show.
Flickr: Is there anything else you’d like to share about your friendship, connecting via Flickr and where that has brought you both today with this exhibit:
Juliette: Flickr is a big part of my life. Nowadays, I mainly document my everyday life through selfies and family photos, but I feel nostalgic for the time when my photography was more artistic. Organizing and curating this exhibition allowed me to reconnect with the way I used Flickr in my youth. In a way, I feel reborn.
Christopher: I’ve made a lot of good friends through Flickr. Juliette being the best of them. It’s a great place to meet interesting people and see great photography.
Urban Nostalgias
Christopher EvansThrough a “Foto Povera” approach, Evans explores the city of
Vancouver using vintage and “toy” cameras, capturing suspended
moments where tension freezes into a fictional memory. Driven by
nostalgia for a time when the latent image—hidden in the heart of our
cameras—carried all our hopes, this exhibition invites you to discover
the spontaneity of a photographic instant where dreamlike visions
prevail over reality.
Urban Nostalgias runs from March 12th to April 4th. For more details visit HCE Galerie’s website at www.hcegalerie.com
And to keep an eye on what Chris is up to, you can find him on Flickr: www.flickr.com/photos/czarf and Instagram: @christopher.evans.photography
Visit his websites at: www.christopherevans.ca and www.czarf.com