Freelance Photography : Bertrand Celce

Tsukiji, Tokyo

Green and Rose Composition at the Tsukiji MarketThe vibrant Tsukiji market in Tokyo is always a hyperventilating experience for a photographer. I am also grateful to the city- and market authorities to let the ordinary public come and stroll there. they could have easily closed it to strangers for security reasons (all this knives and speeding self-propelled carts).Knives and Blood in TsukijiThe only thing is that you better awake early, as the peak activity at Tsukiji is in the wee hours of the morning. Arm yourself with determination and don't bring your best shoes, you might come back with bloody stains. The market is buzzing with hundreds of buyers, sellers, workers who slice and package tons of raw fish.

Urban Japan

A Building in KyotoPart three of the new photo albums will be about achitecture scenes of urban Japan. Day and night, the cities of Japan are a golden mine for a photographer, because of the richness of the architecture of course but also because of the lighting and because of the many small things that build an atmosphere and a picture.Phone, Power Lines in KyotoHere, the phone/power lines are anarchic, and it makes me think to similar messy wirings that I saw in the US and that I used for nice pictures.

Japan Portraits

Cosplay Couple under the Snow - Ikebukuro, TokyoIntroducing another serie of Portraits shot across Japan in 2008 (mostly Tokyo, Kyoto and Osaka). This Album will be named A Street Fashion Serie...Two Girls with Phones - Tokyo StationThe pictures will try to give you a glimpse of the street life and vitality of the big Japanese cities. A photographer's paradise, no doubt of it. Colors, changing fashions, lights and reflections...

Japan Scenes

Backwards CarHere are a few pictures from the soon-to-come Tokyo and Japan album, random pictures made in the streets, the underground commercial centers and wherever something interesting showed up in front of my camera. I thought winter in Japan might be too dark but I was wrong : dim lights offer sometimes more ambiance-laden images than a bright summer day.Man in BlueSomewhere in Tokyo. An underground passageway, maybe in a subway station. Is he a worker making a pause or a security guard doing his job, whoever he is, there was the combination of colors and lines and it struck my eye.

Russia (2)

Katia (Moscow) Moscow is a town whith many opportunities for a photographer. Girls have a natural elegance and class and I had the courage to ask for a pose a couple of times. This picture was shot on the stairs to "Vielka Lozhka", a striving Russian fast-food outlet serving traditional russian cuisine where you can eat something healthy and affordable. The name means Fork & Spoon.This was a hot summer evening and several of us went out to enjoy the cool air and the quietness of the night. Summer is usually nice and warm here, the Russians tend to make the most profit of these long days and don't wait the weekend to go out and party. Russian towns are mostly safe in the evening, it seems to me.
Summer was by the way very cold and rainy in the northern half of Western Europe, including half of France. Comes another cold summer like this one and it could effectively cool down the West European global-warming crowd. After the acid rains and global warming craze, why not try the ice-age panic ?

Pоссия (1)

Russia...Is there a country in Europe with more mystery and appeal to the romantic side of our mind ? I spent some time in Russia this year for a photo exhibition of my work in the town of Nizhny novgorod, 500km east of Moscow. The trip was also an opportunity to feel the pulse of modern Russia and to fully immerge in the unchanged russian-ness of its people and villages. This picture of blond children on a soviet-era sidecar motorcycle, with a woman and her dog at the cloth line in the background is synonym for me of authentic, deep Russia...Nizhny Novgorod has it all. Astounding views on the Volga and the Oka, a Kremlin, beautiful, fully-renovated churches, still many pre-revolutionary old wood house, in spite of new buldings sprouting all over the town and its suburbs. This former merchant town (before the revolution) is at the crossroads between the Russian West and the Russian East.

Un Mariage Français

Now, this is the time for weddings, and hats are in...
The church is the first place to spot the hats, even the bridesmaids have their own hair decoration to make this day unforgettable. But shhh.... this is the mass, be quiet and wait...Lucie and AnaïsBut the real show for wedding hats is at the cocktail party, after the mass. That's when, with a glass of Champagne in hand, you can chat with acquaintances and make new friends. The hat is a résumé by itself, it must be original, classy and elegant, and of course you can't use the same wedding hat than the one worn at last year's wedding...
Each is unique, like the person who wears it of course, and it makes easy to find the one who wears it in a crowd (and we know that wedding crowds can be big). It is not rare that the color of the hat has been matched with the dress or with some other apparel, so you can imagine the time needed to compute these complicated adjustments. Whatever, the results are here in front of our eyes, and with the help of a couple of sparkling glasses (no, it would work even without), the charm and alchemy works...
Whoever invented this tradition was inspired and a wedding without hats would not be a real wedding, or at least would'nt deserve that we try our best for the best of all days. plus, don't forget that the groom and the bride often met at a previous wedding a few months before. And this particular hat on that particular face wasn't neutral that day. Is there a better reason to care for the hats?

Fete de la Musique 2007

The "Fête de la Musique" is back in Paris. The longest day of the year is also the most vibrant of the year in the french capital, july 14th and New Year's Eve just can't near or compete with anything like this.
Musicians can play all day wherever they want, be they professionals or mere amateurs. You can wander in any street and you will stumble on people playing music, singing and dancing.Many people choose to go to the major musical attractions which are usually listed in the newspapers, but they miss the real thing: the atmosphere in simple cafés and bars where musicians and patrons give a personal touch to the Fête. Here, in this bar of Belleville, the musicians (we can see the saxophone and the singer) play inside while people enjoy a glass and look as a woman magicly dances around the tables.

Year Of The Pig

Agriculture Fair, Paris.
Which farm animal can give to the public as much entertainment and pleasure as the pig ? This animal is weird : It is ill-mannered, groans and snorts noisily while rummaging through its juicy dirty litter, but we can't but feel love for this moving animal. There were dozens of pigs of all breeds at the Agriculture Fair and this area of the farm-animals building was a favorite of the visitors.Even when they are asleep, pigs can generate sympathy, and people at the fair would stop a minute smiling, what they would not do probably in front of a sleeping cow. Has it anything to do with their grotesque look and measurements, or their unruly energy ?

Salon de L'Agriculture

The Salon de L'Agriculture takes place every year in Paris, at the Porte de Versailles Expo complex. Hundreds of thousands of visitors come to experience the french countryside and terroirs, its farm animals and products, food and wine. I think that the 2007 edition was a success one more time. Everyone loves to mingle with the hundreds of animals and put their hand on them. This is the sort of thing that we, city dwellers, have forgotten to manipulate long time ago....
Among the many breeds of cows, some are real milk machines, like the black-and-white Holsteins, but there were many other lesser-known cows, coming from the french regions and mountains. Many of the visitors being farmers themselves, I could hear from their comments that they knew very well the differents breeds.