5 Afternoon

Taking a realistic approach to the medium, FOCALE exhibits work that resembles documentary photography with its own distinctive style. As part of its commitment to Swiss and international photographers, it has shown work by renowned photographers including Denis Brihat, Gilles Caron, Denis Dailleux, Robert Frank, Leonard Freed, Gilbert Garcin, Mario Giacomelli, Andreas Horvath, Klavdij Sluban and Paolo Woods.

Marc Renaud (1969) completed an apprenticeship as a photographer, followed by training in documentary photography at the International Center of Photography (ICP) in New York. He develops various documentary projects on social themes (especially the world of security, work, politics and the environment). In 2014, he won the Fribourg photographic survey with Dossier hospitalier, a work on hospital reforms. In 2016, he published en fusion, a book on the process of municipal mergers. In 2019, he ended his trilogy on social change with No Blackout, a book about the energy transition. 

Born April 23, 1949 in Toulouse, Philippe Ayral was introduced to photography in 1960 by a friend who had just received a Werra 24 x 36 a gift and explained depth of field to him. After discovering photography’s creative possibilities, he worked at odd jobs to save up enough money to buy his own Werra 24 x 36 with a Tessar lens and a shutter that can be cocked by rotating the optical unit. Breaking with his beatnik period, in 1970 he hitchhiked his way through the Middle East with a camera. Paris-Match published his pictures of Buzkachi in Kabul and Jacana and the Explorer agency distributed his photographs of nomads. In 1972, he worked in photography stores in Geneva by day and photographed his first clients at night. He first settled in the Ain region, then in Haute Savoie in 1983.

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