Florian Coëlo: Not Exactly the Reality

Not Exactly the Reality is a subjective exploration of the vibrant and colorful city of Melbourne, Australia.

For several months, I wandered in the areas of Fitzroy, Brunswick and the CBD, walking from a street to another, getting lost in the maze of shopping malls, waiting at a tram station or sitting on a public bench watching the flow of people coming and going.

Street photography was a true challenge for me. Accustomed to wide open spaces, wildlife and quietness, find myself in the middle of a gigantic crowded and always moving city was such a new experiment. Defining an angle to my series was therefore essential to frame my work. After a few days observing the life around me, what amazed me the most were the colors and the diversity of people. Shop, bar and café windows, the multitude of languages spoken, the skyscrapers lights, the clothes of passers-by, people’s multiculturalism, the colour was everywhere just like the plurality of the inhabitants.

Like so, I chose to shoot through windows or using mirrors, car windows or others reflective, distorting, blurring surfaces, using lights and shadows to give my pictures this extraordinary color and vibrant energy I felt while living there.

I also played a lot with the colorful lights that illuminate the city, especially by night, from car or tram headlamps to shop windows decorations, floodlights and bar and nightclub spotlights.

I named this series this way because I had the impression during my first times in Melbourne to live in a parallel reality, a world that I didn’t know until now.

Giving this angle to my photos allowed me to transcribe this particular frame of mind, wandering in a distorted reality.