Love in Deauville
If you Google Deauville, like I did, you will get photographs of romantic couples sipping cocktails by the pool, playing on the beach and cuddling in hotel rooms. In these stock images there is a promise: a young, single girl armed with a bikini, determined enough for hunting and fishing for (preferably French) men in Deauville, will end up spending the weekend in the arms of a lover.
I reenacted these stock image scenes with men I approached in Deauville - complete strangers who somehow fit the description or demeanour of the men depicted in the Google Images I had seen. In each of these captured encounters there lies a tension between existing romantic imagery, reality and reenactment. As my photographs go on to have a life of their own in the image world, they will themselves become swallowed up and incorporated into the online image bank, further complicating their slippery relationship with reality.
