Black Clouds: from moving image to still image

When my video Black Clouds quietly crossed one million views on YouTube, many people discovered it as a music video.

For me, it was also something else entirely:

a moving photograph.

The visual language of Black Clouds, produced by Lydia Fauconnet, did not emerge from cinematic references or storytelling conventions. It grew out of the same place as my photographic work — a long-standing relationship with black and white, texture, contrast, and the space between things.

Photography before motion

Before working with sound, I learned to look.

My photographic practice has always been rooted in restraint: limited palettes, minimal gestures, and an attention to what remains when you remove the unnecessary. Black and white photography, for me, is not nostalgic — it is structural. It allows forms to exist without explanation.

The visual world of Black Clouds follows the same logic. There is no illustration, no narrative guidance. The image does not explain the sound, just as the sound does not decorate the image. Both coexist, sometimes uncomfortably.

This tension is intentional.

Grain, darkness, and imperfection

Grain has always played a central role in my photography. Not as an effect, but as a presence — something tactile, imperfect, alive.

In Black Clouds, grain becomes movement. What is static in photography breathes in the video. Shadows thicken. Surfaces hesitate. Darkness is not empty; it is dense.

This is the same darkness I seek in still images: not dramatic, not theatrical, but physical. A darkness you feel rather than see.

The absence of the subject

Very often, my photographs are not about what is shown, but about what is missing.

Faces are avoided. Context is reduced. The subject withdraws.

The video for Black Clouds follows this same principle. It refuses the comfort of identification. There is no focal point designed to anchor the viewer. Instead, the image asks for patience — the same patience required when looking at a photograph that does not immediately reveal itself.

Some viewers stay. Others move on. Both reactions are valid.

Stillness and duration

Photography freezes time. Video usually extends it.

In Black Clouds, I was interested in the space between these two states: images that move but remain essentially still; moments that unfold without progressing.

This approach mirrors the way I work with series in photography — repetition with variation, subtle shifts, almost imperceptible changes. The eye slows down. Attention deepens.

One aesthetic, multiple mediums

The success of Black Clouds as a video did not change my relationship to photography. It confirmed it.

Whether working with a camera or with sound, my intention remains the same: to create spaces rather than statements. To allow ambiguity. To trust the viewer’s sensitivity.

Photography, like experimental music, does not need to explain itself. It needs to resonate.

Closing note

If you arrived here through the video, welcome to the still images.

If you came through photography, the video is simply another surface to explore.

As the year draws to a close, I wish you quiet holidays — time to look slowly, to sit with images, and to let them reveal themselves at their own pace.

Happy holidays.