norbert ghisoland

PORTRAIT 55283

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Norbert Ghisoland took photographs during the years 1920-1930 of the population of Frameries in the Belgian region of Borinage where his studio was located. This former mining area survived through coal extraction and created both the wealth of its owners and the poverty of a working class that laboured under the difficult conditions of coal. As a village photographer, Norbert Ghisoland saw all of the social classes come and go, and notably the class that he had sought to flee, as he was himself the son of a miner. Newborn babies, cyclists, newlyweds, multi-generational families, boxers, farmers, soldiers, all are present in their Sunday best, dressed for the special ritual of having their photograph taken in his old-fashioned studio. The photographer unquestionably demonstrated great finesse in offering the freedom to express themselves to each of his models, to try their luck at assuming real stature before the lens. His formal rigour and technique lent his photographs a density that his descendants found moving and that commanded the respect of the world of photography. He accumulated over 90 000 images without ever attempting to order them, nor even perform selections among them, and of which only half were to be preserved.

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