“Maybe things will get better when IT fails.”
~ Jean‑François Fresson
There is a haunting stillness in Sarah Moon’s Marthe. The image feels suspended in time—soft, dreamlike, and almost whispered into being. Moon has an extraordinary gift for translating emotion through her work. Her subjects often appear to exist between memory and reality, and Marthe is no exception.
The Fresson printing process is unlike any other. It feels closer to a pastel drawing than a photograph, bringing out a texture you can almost feel with your eyes. I’ve always been drawn to the Fresson process not only for its immense beauty, but for the art and mystery within it. Though some of it has been revealed, much remains secret—guarded by the Fresson family for nearly four generations. Part of that secret lies in their instinct and the trained eye passed down through time.
Over three days and roughly six hours of work, four delicate layers of cyan, yellow, magenta, and black are applied to the same sheet of paper, each one rinsed and dried before the next begins. No two prints are ever the same. Weather, humidity, and chance play their part, leaving room for discovery. After one to two weeks, an edition is finally complete—meticulously touched and refined.
The small scale of production, devoted practice, and strong reputation gives the Fresson family the opportunity to work alongside some of the most exceptional photographers of our time, including Sarah Moon, Bernard Plossu, and Sheila Metzner.