Dirt. Summertime. Rays of nearly eternal evening light. ALIVE. All of these can be used to describe Alain Laboile's stunning images of his six children taken in and around his home in France, but they are so much more than that. They are vessels for the spirit of adventure. They're visual touchstones connecting back to each one of our childhoods. Lastly, they're an indepth study of growing up taken by a biased eye, but one that is seeing and not found looking.
I will let Alain speak to this series of images in his own words -
"I'm a father of six. Through my photographic work I celebrate and document my family life: A life on the edge of the world, where intemporality and the universality of childhood meet. Day to day, I create a family album that constitues a legacy that I will pass on to my children. My work reflects our way of life, revolving around their childhood. My photographs will be the testimony of that. In a way my approach can be considered similar to the one of an ethnologist. Though my work is deeply personal, it's also accessible, addressing human nature and allowing the viewer to enter my world and reflect on their own childhoods. Fed everyday and shared with the world via the internet, my photographic production has became a means of communication, leading to a questionning about freedom, being and having."