If one of these days or even at the end of a splendid day you find yourself in a rural country and you can see in the distance the road with a cloud of dust in front of you, as would do a horde of buffaloes, do not panic as it is most probably Yves Marcoux in his Honda, darting towards a sightseeing identified at noon and calculated to be at its best a few minutes before sundown. His camera on its tripod, a few calculations with the exposure meter and the photos taken, he would pack up everything, climb in his car or on his motorcycle. The dust cloud would follow him in the distance for a second scene which is ready to receive the twilight rich fragrance which can be crystallised before and after sundown.
Yves Marcoux, son of the farm, where the work starts well before sunlight and finishes at sundown, knows when to observe and when it is time to act. He foresees that an ordinary scene, if the lighting condition and the proper elements are combined, will become an extraordinary scene. When the sun has rested for the day, Yves will not hesitate to retrieve his one million lumen rechargeable electric torch to light up a specific element of his own composition, and create a surprising image without falling into surrealism excess. In English, there are two prevailing terms in photography: "taking pictures" and "making pictures". We can whether take photographs of an event, from a scene or access to another level and do or create images. Guess to what class of photographer belongs Yves Marcoux.
He will not hesitate to drive his vehicle onto a boat in order to take a short cut permitting him to maximise an expedition. He will not hesitate to sleep in his own car in order to be there at the precise moment.
To create an image rather than to take one, it is going beyond reality, deriving an interpretation proper to the artist. Yves is offering you, such as a painter, his photographic interpretations of scenes which became magical.
Yves Marcoux teaches at the Collège du Vieux Montréal. His photographs are sold throughout the world through Getty Images, First Light and Publiphoto. Last spring, he was publishing his second book of photography with Les �ditions de l'Homme.
- Marc-André Côté
Teacher at Cégep du Vieux-Montréal