For a photographic ecology
Photographic ecology proposes using the image as a method of opening oneself up. Not photographing less, but exploring differently: photographing with instinct, without preconceived frames, then enriching ourselves with what our images reveal about us and the world.
Do not do less
One might think that I advocate, like many others, the idea that taking fewer photos, consuming less digital content, would be a way to restore value to things. No. What I call ecology is rather a way of letting ourselves be nourished, touched, and transformed by what surrounds us, by our environment—allowing ourselves to be enriched. To see ourselves not as an *individeu* (individual), but as an environment made of millions of organisms cooperating with one another, and to do the same in our representations of the world through photography. That is, to photograph with our body, with our instinct, rather than with traditions of representation, framing, “good subjects,” etc.
Do more and more blurry
The title of this article could have been “For a Photographic Permaculture”: using photography, something we all do daily, as a genuine tool for discovering the world—not just a mere record of things and events. By photographing randomly, photographing details, photographing without looking, and above all by working on the exercise of our gaze—that is, taking the time to enrich ourselves with what our photographs tell us. That is, moving beyond the belief that we have control over our images, that they belong to us, that we are their authors—and instead realizing that we are agents pressing the button of a camera, but that this agent exists within an ecosystem that influences their actions.
In this ecosystem, there are the words you are reading now, which may influence the photos you take; there are also the cameras, the relationships, etc. And so, an eco-photographic permaculture means creating many images in a more unpredictable, more approximate way—no less numerous—then taking the time to enrich ourselves with what our photos reveal about us and the world, taking the time to look at them to learn about ourselves and the world. It also means playing much more, without expecting any particular result. Then playing with looking, with being surprised.
Images have become a language everyone uses daily, ever since digital tools placed them in everyone’s hands. What is at stake in images now affects us very directly — psychologically, socially, politically, artistically. Doing without critical thought about images, their technologies and their uses no longer seems possible to me. I work by researching from practice, through an ethnomethodological approach, observing what people actually do with images rather than imposing ready-made models on them. I share here my own perspective on this ground: reflections drawn from practice, concepts, methods, somewhere between image education and research — where transmitting and thinking about the image are one and the same gesture.
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Educating about images, organising disagreement
Practical concepts and tools for building a shared understanding through images.
A detailed account of the lecture given on 10 June 2026 at the Archives départementales de Loire-Atlantique, for the Grandir avec la culture (…) -
Framed, autonomous, vernacular: a typology of the regimes of images
Why defining the different regimes of images is a political, educational and heritage prerequisite.
The audiovisual cultural object is commonly reduced to works holding a visa d’exploitation, the certificate required for theatrical release in (…) -
Sound is the first factor of immersion
Why immersion begins with the ears.
We associate immersion with the image that surrounds us, with the spherical screen, with the headset. I defend here the opposite idea, and I (…) -
Letting autistic children make images
An account of a video workshop at the André Boulloche day hospital.
Over a period of several months, I led a video-creation workshop in a day hospital that cares for autistic children. I want to give an account of (…) -
Permanent Photography
The image as a dimension of existence, no longer as a tool of life
Since a camera entered the phone that never leaves us, from 2005 onward, the image has stopped being an object we make at certain moments and has (…) -
The Selfie, the Filter, and the Two Bodies
The image of self as therapeutic working material.
A young woman retouches her ID photo using artificial intelligence. The educator accompanying her tells her: “That’s not you. You’re already very (…) -
The object that disposes
What machines change in mediation.
When we choose a tool for mediation, we choose a device of relationships. The technical object carries within it a history, a politics, ways of (…) -
The contemporary functions of images: beyond memory
Towards an anthropology of image-as-speech and its consequences for mediation.
We think we know what an image is. We think it is a trace, a memory, a proof. But images have changed function without our fully realising it. For (…) -
Vision is a reconstruction
What the eye does not see, and why it changes everything about our relationship to images.
We believe we see the world as it is. We believe our eyes capture an objective image of what lies before us, the way a camera would capture a (…) -
Image education as a space for connection
Trusting how people see to restore dialogue.
On March 16, 2026, during the National Meeting of Regional Image Education Centres, organised by Normandie Images in Rouen, I took part in a round (…) -
The Reality and Fiction of Images
How our perceptions navigate between memorial reconstruction and multiple image regimes.
Images perpetually oscillate between real and imaginary. This porous border reveals less a confusion than a fundamental characteristic of our (…) -
Cinema and artificial intelligence, two innovations looking at each other
Reflections on technological upheavals and their creative echoes.
Cinema and artificial intelligence share a similar trajectory: disruptive innovations first decried, then becoming transformative industries of (…) -
The Accelerated Eye
Manifesto for a new ecology of the gaze.
What if speed were not the enemy of culture, but the instrument of a new form of sensitive intelligence? A radical reappropriation of our right to (…) -
The Selfie, Mirror of Narcissus?
A Plea for Redefining Our Relationship to Images.
The omnipresence of the selfie raises questions: is it a sign of a narcissistic era? I argue, on the contrary, that this gesture, poorly (…) -
The mobile phone as a tool for cinematic creation
Revolutionizing practices and perspectives.
In twenty years, the mobile phone has revolutionized cinematic creation: as a tool always within reach, it enables the filming of the unexpected, (…) -
About the “new” images
A critical reflection on technological innovation and real cultural transformation.
Between ephemeral fashion effects and genuine artistic revolutions, “new images” often reveal more about our relationship to the present than to (…) -
The cinephilia of excerpts
Legitimizing new “impure” practices.
Traditional cinephilia venerates the complete work, but the internet has given rise to a new form: cinephilia of the excerpt. Enthusiasts now (…) -
For a photographic ecology
A method of opening up to oneself through images.
Photographic ecology proposes using the image as a method of opening oneself up. Not photographing less, but exploring differently: photographing (…) -
Cinema and death
To redefine cinema as an intrinsically diverse phenomenon.
Cinema, as a mechanical recording device, shares a unique relationship with death. This connection redefines the cinematic experience, which is (…) -
Artificial intelligence is an opportunity for free and experimental cinema
AI offers humanity the opportunity to reclaim its place.
Artificial intelligence is a threat to the professional academic sector that produces blockbusters and other commercially driven films, and an (…) -
The difference between image and sound from a neurological point of view
A tool for audiovisual creation.
Images and sounds exist through our perception. The eye and ear transform light and pressure into electrical signals, interpreted by the brain. (…) -
La réinvention de la séance collective de cinéma sur TikTok
Renaissance spontanée du partage de l’art comme humanisme.
Contrairement à l’idée que les réseaux sociaux isolent, ils réinventent des moments de partage collectif, comme la séance de cinéma. Sur TikTok, (…) -
For contemplative cinema
Theoretical opening of the definition of cinema
What is cinema? This question, posed by André Bazin in the 1950s, is, in my view, a very important one. Cinema, like any other art form, always (…) -
Bellapoarch, or the Mona Lisa of the 21st Century?
Analysis of a success.
A 10-second video posted on the social network TikTok on August 18, 2020 has made, one month later, more than 400 million views, and the highest (…) -
Vertical films
Reflection and starting point for experiments.
Moving images are verticalizing. This is far from being anecdotal and has an impact on our representation of the world. What philosophical changes (…) -
Audiovisual workshops to combat gender stereotypes
Methods for audiovisual creativity.
Thought-provoking ideas and proposals for audiovisual workshop concepts for nuanced and useful actions, with the aim of building critical thinking (…) -
Drawing on architecture
The projected image is an extremely rich track to animate architecture, private or public space, the theatre stage. I have been experimenting with (…) -
Pocketfilms-Empathy
Project to support psychosocial and pedagogical practices around the empathy clinic and using images. By Serge Tisseron and Benoît Labourdette, (…) -
Research-action “Image Education 2.1”
Collaborative action-research project led by Benoît Labourdette production in 2018 and 2019, to develop the synergy between teenage cinema (…) -
The singularity, a collaborative transmedia artistic project
“The singularity” is a collaborative transmedia project, launched in 2016 by Benoît Labourdette. Around a thematic spine, over a long period of (…) -
Ciné Lab # 6: “New usages, digital cultures. What (R) evolution for cinemas?”
Day of reflection and common development of innovative projects, for cinema operators and mediators.The ACRIRA and the GRAC (Rhône Alpes (…) -
Smugglers images national metting 2016 : pico-projection workshop
As part of smugglers national meetings of images 2016 November 19, 2016, I proposed a “pico-projection workshop”, experiences shared with (…) -
Spirit Journal : article “Lives in Pictures”
I published the article “Lives in Pictures” in the June 2016 issue of the Spirit Journal on the theme “Power of Images”. Issue edited by Carole (…) -
Tell me LED
Creative residency at the Maison Populaire de Montreuil: participatory creation and feature film. Creative residency at the Maison Populaire de (…) -
Book: “Image education 2.0”
Practical guide (free download).
“Image education 2.0” (under the direction of Benoît Labourdette), practical book of image education in the digital age, published by ACAP. Free (…) -
Ministry of Culture (France) : National Consultation on Arts and Cultural Education
The Ministry of Culture and Communication (France) launched in November 2012 a “National Consultation on Arts Education” to “enable all young (…)
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Contents A film by Benoît Labourdette (2’24s, 2019, muet).
Why do we let ourselves be photographed?Based on photos of Mark Neville published in Le Monde “M”. -
www.sergetisseron.com website Websites, video platforms, digital cooperation spaces
www.sergetisseron.com WorkI supported: Support the definition of the project. Design and ergonomics. Web Development. Training editors (set (…) -
Workshop “Tools, games and workshops for image education” - Images en bibliothèques A story of the session “How to run a video production workshop differently”, led by Benoît Labourdette.
Images en bibliothèques has launched a new course, designed by Florian Lecron, for professionals in the library, film, education and culture (…) -
When thirty-five professionals discover their psychosocial skills through creative experience A look back at the interprofessional seminar of January 12, 2026, in Limoges: a day where theory gave way to lived experience.
At the DRAC Nouvelle-Aquitaine, educators, teachers, caregivers, and cultural actors experienced together what it truly means to develop (…) -
The contemporary functions of images: beyond memory Towards an anthropology of image-as-speech and its consequences for mediation.
We think we know what an image is. We think it is a trace, a memory, a proof. But images have changed function without our fully realising it. For (…)
