Precarious Balance
Between Tension and Stillness
In search of space, the body enters places where matter resists — where freedom collides with walls, textures, invisible forces, and shifting horizons. This series explores the tension between movement and constraint, impulse and obstruction. Each image captures a tipping point, where balance becomes an act of defiance — a question of position.
Within raw, unstable, sometimes hostile environments, bodies move, rise, bend — but never break. They embody a universal tension between grounding and escape, between gravity and lightness.
Mud, flour, stone, water — materials usually perceived as inert — become active counterparts, resisting, shaping, or bearing witness to a silent struggle to break free from the frame.
A fragile balance begins to take shape — uneasy, yet essential. A visual exploration where instinct and will collide to transcend imposed limits.
Urban Poetry
November-24, Nantes
Albane Baleste
Urbanism plays a central role in my photography. Gradually, the structures of the city have taken on a larger presence within my compositions. Photographing people is one thing, but placing them within an environment adds depth and context. Megacities are often spoken of as living entities. What would Batman be without Gotham? New York is said to live, to have a soul, a personality of its own. The city becomes both a reflection and a counterpart of humanity — its child, its protective parent, and its unsettling stranger.
With this photograph, I wanted to highlight the poetry of presence embodied by a dancer within a raw, oppressive environment. Albane becomes the touch of lightness and humanity that inserts itself, resisting the suffocating pressure of a city that threatens to engulf.
Illusory Comfort
Lucile Meunier
May-25, Nantes
In the hollow of her bathtub, Lucile finds no rest.
Stretched in a pose of surrender, her body contrasts with the environment that surrounds it: massive arches, marked concrete, unforgiving lines. The intimate furniture has become a displaced, alien, almost ridiculous object amid this harsh urban space.
Everything here speaks of rupture: rupture between inside and outside, between the expectation of comfort and the impossibility of attaining it. Her face, turned toward the viewer, questions without asking, suggesting weariness or surrender that finds no place. The light, almost dramatic, defines the volumes, accentuates tensions, amplifies the sense of latent discomfort.
The photograph becomes a tableau of ambivalence: the bathtub, a symbol of relaxation, turns into a coffin of stillness. The space, which should offer volume, crushes with its monumentality. We witness not a scene of rest, but a silent performance where the body struggles to anchor itself, to assert itself, despite the strangeness of everything around it.
This is where the uncomfortable balance resides: in the fragile in-between where the human occupies, temporarily, the midst of structures that were never expecting it.
Ninety
For several years, this idea has lingered in the back of my mind.
The idea of a wall of water fascinates me — because it is impossible. Shifts in perspective create a surprisingly disorienting experience. I recently took part in an escape room. In one of the rooms, a section of a house was reconstructed at a 40-degree angle. The inner ear is disturbed, the brain affected, and nausea gradually takes over.
Change the horizon, and everything is upended. Everything is in the same place, yet from another angle. Everything is the same, yet different.
Elodie sits, but nothing truly rests. The chair is narrow, almost laughable, lost in a space that offers no anchor. Her feet touch nothing but water — an unstable surface, a false promise of support.
The body folds, holds itself.
The umbrella offers no shelter: it weighs, it closes in the space.
Everything seems held together by habit, concentration, or sheer refusal to give in.
Here, balance is neither natural nor comfortable.
It is suspension.
A precarious accord between possible fall and the will to remain.
September-25, Elodie, Vendée
I Am Shadow and Light
In this image, I sought to break away from traditional portrait codes by introducing a raw, almost visceral dimension. Laurine moves within a cold, abrasive, and soiling environment, contrasting with the archetype of beauty often associated with her. This visual dissonance reveals a compelling duality — like a fragile flower emerging from a crack in asphalt.
The bridge she forms with her body acts as a symbolic threshold between two worlds: order and chaos, elegance and harshness, exposure and erasure. But above all, it questions. This hair falling toward the ground, these legs marked by the material, and above all those eyes — hidden, yet undeniably present — silently observing. Who is judging whom? Who is questioning whom?
The image then becomes a mirror, onto which each viewer projects their own interpretation.
Laurine Blineau
Second shooter : Sébastien Vendé
October-24, Nantes
Weightlessness
Mélina, january-26, Nantes
Here, the body is no longer fully subjected. It floats between two states, as if held by an invisible force.
Familiar reference points fade: the floor is no longer certain, the frame offers no protection, the gaze drifts away.
It is not a matter of falling, but of remaining in that fragile moment where nothing yet weighs.
Balance is no longer a tension.
It becomes suspension.
That moment when doubt takes hold, when all certainty drifts away.
A door planted where it should not be.
Not quite open, not quite closed.
Anne seeks support, navigating instability: the water rises, the ground disappears, the frame offers no protection. Here, balance is not a comfortable position. It is a quiet, almost invisible effort to remain upright when all reference points give way.
Among the photographers I admire: Lee Miller and Man Ray.
For this photograph, I humbly drew inspiration from their universe. The book resting on the model’s face is a collection of Lee Miller’s photographs. On its cover, a striking image: an enclosed space opened by a torn mosquito net, revealing the vastness of the desert. This idea of passage, threshold, and inner transformation left a deep impression on me. In itself, the photo may not be “beautiful,” but what it evokes surpasses that entirely.
I wanted to convey this moment of escape, suspended between two worlds.
The door, planted amidst the waves, symbolizes another place accessible to those who dare to lose themselves. The book, resting like a mask, a refuge, an opening to distant imaginings. The body, both fragile and strong, caught between the tumult of the waves and the calm of the sky.
Between Two Worlds
May-25
Anne, Batz-sur-Mer Beach
Threshold
Zora, april-25, Mauves-sur-Loire
One face, two worlds.
The line is sharp, arbitrary, and it imposes its law.
On one side, a controlled, orderly space where everything seems frozen. On the other, a more unstable, shifting territory where reference points dissolve.
Zora moves between the two, belonging fully to neither.
Balance is not about choosing. It lies in the ability to remain at the point of friction where worlds intersect without understanding each other.
Standing still is not an option.
Each day demands movement, adjustments, compromises. One must learn to navigate changing spaces, sometimes complex,
sometimes inhospitable,
sometimes, briefly, reassuring.
To you, the viewer, I pose the right question:
At what point did I accept to adapt to spaces that do not resemble me?
The Abyss
Martine, Bretigny Pool, Rennes, april-25
Seated at the edge, suspended between two worlds.
Behind her, smooth, deep water — an uncertain abyss, a bottomless precipice. Above, a concrete sky presses down. The horizon tilts. The moment is frozen, yet everything in her posture speaks of movement.
The momentum before the fall.
The hesitation before the leap.
Martine’s body bears the traces of a struggle. A subtle, irreversible scar tells the story of what she has endured. She conceals it without hiding it, embraces it without surrendering. Her gaze, her smile, her silence reveal nothing but a personal truth: a body that still belongs to life.
The diving board becomes a threshold — a place of passage where the shadow of illness gradually fades, where the void is no longer only a threat, but a possibility. For at the edge of the abyss, there is also flight.
Precarious Comfort
Charlotte, june-25
M. Hulot beach
As if the place could still keep its promise…
Yes, Charlotte, your chair is comfortable. You feel at ease. Retreating into it defines your bubble, your stability, your routines.
Yet nothing here is meant to last: the water rises, the ground gives way, the seat slowly sinks.
This is not a struggle. It is a quiet decision: to stay, despite everything.
To act as if balance still exists, until the moment when no illusion remains.
Sometimes, our life choices resemble this. To persist, to cling in the face of the inexorable inevitability of an inextricable situation.
Reality will overwhelm anyone who remains still in a world in motion.
Breathe
february-24
Once released into space, fine particles of flour transform into a true brush of air, sculpting ephemeral and unpredictable forms. Each movement becomes an encounter between matter and emptiness.
Dance is an art of freedom, and here, that freedom unfolds in its most organic form. Every leap, every twist draws lines through space — a silent dialogue with light. What is usually invisible and diffuse becomes a tangible trace of energy and grace.
The image unsettles through its ambiguity. At first glance, confusion arises: are we underwater, witnessing a suspended aquatic motion? Has the image been inverted, reversed to create this sense of unreal suspension?
Alice, at the center of this suspended choreography, seems to drift beyond time. Her body arches in search of vital momentum, while the flour, expanding like an aura around her, makes visible the invisible force of her breath, her energy. She is no longer bound by gravity. She rises, breaks free from the frame, and invites us to feel — beyond the image — this moment of pure freedom.
Here, air becomes tangible, time fractures, and movement turns into silent poetry.
Breath becomes visible — and Alice finally inhales.
Alice LABAT
Living Nature
Cléliaa, Art Museum of Angers, may-25
In the frozen silence of the museum, a winged figure rises and wavers. Her bare foot seeks footing on a pedestal too solid, too full, too stable for an unstable presence. She is neither entirely statue nor fully alive. Around her, sculpted narratives watch without life; stone drapery falls flawlessly, gestures frozen for centuries mimic grandeur. Clélia breathes. But it is a contained breath, a taut body, a figure off balance. Her dramatic, almost theatrical angel costume dialogues with the immobile marble: she defies it as much as she extends it.
Behind her, the glorious tumult of ancient heroes rises in a vertical surge; she, positioned before, counters it with the gentleness of silent discord. In this space designed for the timeless, her presence recalls the fleeting moment.
She is both apparition and resistance, an anachronistic figure suspended between fall and ascent, myth and masquerade, frozen eternity and human fragility. She is the angel of nothing. Yet she is here.
And in this silent confrontation between stone effigies and living flesh, between the still life of history and the present muse, something cracks: the museum ceases to be a place of preservation and becomes, for an instant, a place of collision. Where the past no longer dominates. It listens.
And you, watching — when do you place yourself?
Martine, april-26, La Montagne
Last Refrain
We’ve learned to love what protects us.
We’ve learned to multiply layers, filters, packaging.
We’ve learned to make everything cleaner, safer, more controlled.
At home, you barely notice it.
It disappears quickly — sealed bags, repeated gestures.
Three trash bags a day, maybe more.
We don’t really count anymore.
We call it comfort.
Here, everything remains.
The colors, the volume, the accumulation.
What usually overflows is finally laid bare.
As if the body had to learn to coexist with what it produces.
To find a place within this excess that has become normal.
Nothing is dirty, and yet everything spills over.
Nothing threatens directly, and yet it feels inevitable.
We wanted to protect ourselves from everything.
Even from the living.
So we piled it up, sealed it off, pushed it away.
Until we no longer know where it begins, or where it ends.
And within this setting,
there’s only a fragile balance left.
Something still holding on —
but for how long?
Statement
French fine art photographer, I explore the invisible tensions that shape our spaces and gestures. My work captures moments where balance wavers, revealing quiet, fleeting stories. In Les équilibres inconfortables, I focus on the details that often go unnoticed.
I aim to create images that provoke thought while leaving room for mystery and interpretation. I photograph first for myself—letting the image speak rather than overthinking its meaning.
I’ve been working professionally for thirteen years, beginning in the exacting world of birth photography. Often labeled an urban photographer, I see myself primarily as a portraitist. The label matters little—as long as there are people, I am interested. My practice is fundamentally about connecting with others.
I’m not drawn to purely contemplative photography. I like to structure my shots. Landscapes and animals can be beautiful, but if you’re not in the frame, I’ll probably move on.
In Parallel
Same standards, different contexts
Alongside my personal work, I pursue a more day-to-day photography practice, driven by commissions and encounters. Portraits, fashion, events — varied contexts, yet always the same attention to people and their presence within the frame.
These images respond to more defined expectations, while preserving what guides my approach: the eye, precision, and a sense of simplicity.
They form another field of expression — more direct, yet just as essential to my journey.
You’ve probably already seen my work
-
Exhibitions
-
Social media
-
Magazines
-
Cinemas and theatres