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With a prize of 5,000 euros by the Scam Velasquez Association, the Roger Pic Award is assigned to a photographic portfolio witnessing a generous and humanistic gaze. Two photographers have been rewarded by the jury: Denis Dailleux (VU’) for his series ln Ghana – We Shall Meet Again and Tomas van Houtryve (VII) for Lines and Lineage. The portfolio At the end of the day of Laetitia Vançon has also been noticed.

In Ghana – We shall meet again
”It makes now a few years that I regularly visit Ghana, a country that I discovered in Paul Strand’s book ”Ghana: an African Portrait ”, and whose images I finally dreamed about. During my first visits, the Jamestown neighborhood became the center of my work. Situated at the seashore, this historic area is home to the fishing port of Accra, the capital of Ghana. This small strip of sand, wedged between sea and city, also seems caught between tradition and modernity. The simplicity reigning there, the bodies evolving there, the lights of the sea fascinated me and I found there the images I was looking for. Whenever I go back to Accra, Jamestown always offers me dazzling scenes.”

Denis Dailleux was born in Angers in 1958. He lives in Paris. His empathy for others naturally led him to work out portraiture as a mode of figuration of those he desires to come closer to what they are. Member of the VU’ agency (Paris), he is represented by the Camera Obscura gallery (Paris), the Galerie 127 (Marrakech) and the Peter Sillem gallery (Frankfurt).

Lines and Lineage
Lines and Lineage confronts the American collective amnesia concerning its Mexican past in the Wild West. During the first half of the 19th century, this vast territory from California to Wyoming and Texas was governed by Mexico. Yet, there is no photographic documentation of this period. To imagine what History might have looked like, Tomas van Houtryve photographed the landscapes of this first frontier between the United States and Mexico on glass plates, and made portraits of descendants of these first inhabitants.

Tomas van Houtryve, born in 1975, is a documentary photographer and conceptual artist. He mixes investigative journalism, philosophy and metaphor. His projects challenge the notions of identity, memory, and relationship between the individual and the state. Member of Agence VII since 2010, he is represented by the Baudouin Lebon gallery in Paris.

At the end of the day
This is the portrait of a territory – the Outer Hebrides – through the prism of his younger generation. The Hebrides form an island chain 220 km long of 27,000 inhabitants, located in the north of Scotland, on the edge of what is still Europe. How to live, work and flourish there in a sustainable way? Held in this territory, like by an elastic band, the young leave but are tirelessly brought back to their islands. By attachment but also by fear of the unknown.

Laetitia Vançon began photography as a self-taught artist in 2012. Her story, often as close as possible to the intimate, reveals how human communities recognize each other and gather around simple moments, despite the differences in cultures and traditions dividing them.