Reclaiming Our Cultural Landscapes no. 2 // Le Petit Parisien Willy Ronis Ksenija Spanec
“I first saw Le Petit Parisien on the cover of the special issue , of the French magazine Photo, dedicated to Willy Ronis. I am keeping it as a treasure.” Ksenija Spanec
Welcome to our series Reclaiming Our Cultural Landscapes where we asked photographers to write about a photograph or photographer who shaped either their photographic self, relationship with their cultural communities or communal heritage. Don’t miss the 2017 Festival which runs from 6 May to 7 June 2017, across the West Midlands at www.reclaimphotographyfestival.org.
LE PETIT PARISIEN, PARIS, FRANCE, 1952
WILLY RONIS (1910-2009) (Photo Magazine)
I first saw Le Petit Parisien on the cover of the special issue , of the French magazine Photo, dedicated to Willy Ronis. I am keeping it as a treasure.
While I really like entire Willy Ronis’s work, this image fills my heart with immense joy every time I see it.
I can almost hear the sound of little foots running and little voice laughing on a beautiful, sunny morning. It represents to me, the ultimate happiness.
This little face, fragile little arms, legs that are almost flying over the sidewalk…the happiness of this little boy is contagious. It doesn’t have to be explained. It just telling us that the happiness still exists, in little stories and little things.
This particular photo has entered my mind and heart and affected my photography in the most particular way. My time can be divided now, in The Time before Le Petit Parisen and the Time after Le Petit Parisien.
Before is the time when I was in subconscious search for the lightness, beautiful scenes, nice moments, but without strong emotions.
Then I saw the photo and everything changed.
While watching this photo I tremble because of the most wonderful emotions that I can even imagine I realized that what I really want to achieve with my photos is finding emotions in ordinary things and trying to transmit them visually through photography. I want to feel and to make others feel, while watching my images.
Guided with this strong desire to make difference instead of indifference, my „The Garden“ series was born.
Ksenija Španec was born 1966, in Zagreb, Croatia. She started to explore photography quite late in life, first by using a digital camera which she abandoned and replaced with old, film cameras.
Although her main focus is on flower and plant photography, subjects of her photography are various. She is a self taught photographer. She is a member of Kadar36, a group of Croatian photographers which exclusively uses film cameras.
Ksenija exhibited in her hometown Zagreb, in USA and Italy.