French photographer Stéphane Mahé has released a new book titled "Mood" through Éditions de Juillet, offering readers a poetic journey through his distinctive visual universe. The 92-page publication, released on January 1, 2024, combines Mahé's photographs and text with poems by Yvon Le Men, creating a multifaceted artistic statement. The book is presented by Galerie L'Entrée des Artistes, which represents Mahé's work. Alexandra Palka provided commentary on the publication, highlighting its unique approach to contemporary photography.

The philosophical foundation of Mahé's work connects to filmmaker Chris Marker's 1966 observation that photography represents "the instinct of the hunt without the desire to kill." Marker described the process as stalking, aiming, and shooting, where the camera's "Clack!" produces an eternal image rather than a fatal wound. However, Mahé's work recognizes that before achieving eternal status, photographic images must capture the lightning flash of reality fraught with melancholy. Too often, photographers rely on comfortable clichés about seizing or taming reality, ignoring the powerful fictional force inherent in images.

Mahé's practice embraces the notion that becoming a lover of lightning and uniting with wandering reality does not require abandoning fantasy, myth, or tales that suggest more than they show. His nocturnal photography collapses reality into fragments, undermining it with tumultuous grain and twilight color vivacity. What remains is a precipitate of emotions that strikes the imagination—the big bang of fiction flowing through every pore of the image. In "Mood," Mahé gathers his works as if collected within dream folds, creating poetic distractions capable of filling the abyss of fear before the dizziness of the invisible.

The book deploys a dreamlike fable on the edge of magical realism, where humanity races toward the moon with Orpheus's whims, succumbing to sensory exuberance. Behind elegies that frolic behind night's eyelids, the viewer's melancholy mind embarks on a whirling stroll carried by chromatic variations and luminous effects. Mahé captures fleeting dawns, streets twisted in darkness, silhouettes cut in momentary flame, facades exalted by eternity's desire, and squares iridescent with gold lost in solitude's intoxication. His approach shares sensibilities with photographer Harry Gruyaert, who structures his work around color as an independent value rather than mere illustration. Gruyaert explains that color represents the emotion of photography itself, sculpted through patient waiting for light and color to reveal their strength.

Both Mahé and Gruyaert reject staging, preferring to be surprised by unexpected beauty. Gruyaert notes that while it might be simpler to repaint walls like Antonioni or direct characters' clothing, such manipulation would sacrifice the instantaneous miracle that takes breath away. This trust in the viewer's imagination brings images to life, making photographers what Mahé calls "light eaters" who made Icarus dream. The viewer must follow Prometheus's footsteps to steal the burning fire of the moment. Yvon Le Men captures this relationship in his poems, writing: "It is the night that makes the light / when spread like water on the plain / in the gaze it... Its the night that makes the dream / when it wakes us from a nightmare with a dream."

"Mood" positions Mahé's work within a tradition connecting to Whistler's Nocturnes and contemporary color photography. The publication invites viewers to engage with images that blur material reality to sketch metaphysical charades, as if projected by magic lantern. Through constant confrontation between imagination and observation, Mahé reveals life's spillage across velvet blue skies lit by electric neon. The book serves as both a retrospective of Mahé's poetic vision and a forward-looking statement about photography's capacity to merge reality with dreamlike fiction. Interested readers can find more information at the publisher's website, www.editionsdejuillet.com.