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LAURENT CIPRIANI

Along the road

 

It's a special day. Sometimes expected. The sun hits the road and people gather around. They are in front of their house, in their village, or in the countryside: suspended.

Since 1903, like a traveling theatre company, cyclists, advertising caravans and journalists are on the road every summer, writing and telling stories about this centenary commedia dell'arte. I'm part of it since 2011 to cover the event for The Associated Press. An opportunity for a three weeks motorcycle ride, and a frantic adventure throughout the country. Beside my work on the race, I cross delightful landscapes, feel singular atmospheres, and I watch all these people along the road. They are millions. In 2013, for the 100th edition of the race, I started to shoot them.

 

 

Behind my driver, I crossed the country during six weeks and 7,068 km, few minutes or seconds before the riders' passage, capturing hundreds of these people and moments whizzing by in front of me at 60 km/h. Excluding any contact and staging, the motorcycle's movement allowed me to photograph everyone in the same way, without narration. However, this process also created an ambiguous atmosphere, out of reality. The race is absent, the landscape seems decor, some people look into space and others look at my camera very quickly, stupefied. In this moment of pre-show, the expectation materializes as an event in itself. The scene is reversed: spectators become actors, they write their own story, the story of an ephemeral world in which we are the spectators. 

This work is not about the Tour de France, cycling, or fans: the purpose of this series consists in getting a quirky portrait of France that convey a particular point of time.

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