Creative Photographer & Retoucher Benoit Lapray is the Edge of Humanity Magazine contributor of these images. From the ‘MONUMENTS’ photo series. To see Benoit ’s body of work, click on any photograph.

It was in 2015, while walking in the streets of Paris, where I live, that the idea came to me to make a photo work around the monuments. The idea was to stage heroes from Pop Culture by integrating them into the scenery in the place of existing Parisian monuments. A way for me to pay tribute to the creators of these characters who inspire us and feed our imagination for decades. But, due to lack of time, I only started working on this project in 2018. After 2 years of work, 13 visuals have been completed (divided into two separate chapters). It has been a long wait for me, but I am delighted to finally be able to present this work that has been in my mind for many years.

So it is in Paris, this “museum city” that radiates throughout the world, that my new series of photographs is set. Here, frozen on huge stone pedestals, cult characters from popular culture are raised to the rank of “Monuments”. It is a way for me to underline that these heroes of fiction are today part of the world’s cultural heritage. Unfortunately a choice had to be made and for technical or aesthetic reasons, many characters will not be represented here. But it is a work which is far from being finished, and many other characters will come to supplement thereafter this list which, I hope, will be the longest possible !

The pictures of this series were taken “à l’ancienne”, in film. The negatives were then digitized, then retouched, to add CGI elements. The figurines, which served as a basis for this work, were “scanned” in studio with the photogrammetry process. I thus considered this series as a real laboratory for image research where old techniques are mixed with the most modern processes. A new way of looking at photography. And a way perhaps to reconcile the purists with the avant-gardists of photography.