Subrealism
Analog photographic and moving-image research
Vietnam & Japan series, 2025
A project by Nino Lou Le Chenadec
Subrealism is an ongoing photographic research exploring how places, memories, and moments are perceived once reality is no longer approached as a stable condition.
The project originates from analog photographs captured in specific sensory and temporal contexts. These images are not treated as documents, but as fragile memory-states, already altered by time, material decay, technical limitations, and subjective interpretation.
Through a controlled intervention process, using data trained exclusively on this closed analog corpus, the images are transformed to generate a sub-reality : a space where realism is neither amplified nor disrupted, but subtly compressed, displaced, and re-aligned.
What emerges is not a surreal transformation, but a quieter distortion. Familiar environments hesitate, architecture appears to breathe, and perception becomes unstable. The image remains recognizable, yet something feels misaligned.
Subrealism operates at the threshold where photographic truth dissolves into interpretation, questioning how contemporary tools, when deliberately constrained reshape our relationship to memory, place, and visual authenticity.
Subrealism - Vietnam series
Subrealism - Train
Subrealism - Cube
Subrealism - Vietnam series
Subrealism - Mirror 404
Subrealism - Totem
Subrealism - Vietnam series
Subrealism - Signal
Subrealism - Sovereign
Subrealism - Elephanti
Subrealism - Japan series
Subrealism - Crossing
Subrealism - Afterlight
Subrealism - Japan series
Subrealism - Overpass
Subrealism - Vendor
Subrealism - Japan series
Subrealism - Pulse
Subrealism - Guardian
Subrealism - Drift
Process
The source material was produced using analog photography, captured across day and night conditions on multiple film stocks with varying sensitivities. Several rolls consisted of expired film, introducing uncontrolled artifacts, exposure instability, and material loss.
The images were shot using two compact analog cameras and one disposable camera. A significant portion of the material resulted in failed, partially exposed, or degraded frames. These imperfections were not corrected but became structural elements of the project’s visual language.
Prior to any intervention, the original film grain was carefully neutralized to allow for precise image reconstruction. The transformation process relies on AI-assisted inpainting using a dataset trained exclusively on the complete body of analog photographs, forming a closed, self-referential system with no external visual input.
Motion is introduced through restrained animation: subtle spatial shifts, micro-movements, and temporal instabilities. The final stage consists of color grading and compositing, designed to preserve the immediacy, tonal fragility, and accidental qualities inherent to the original photographs.
Credits :
Artistic direction & photographyNino Lou Le Chenadec
Additionnal VFX & CompositingTristan Piechocki
Sound DesignGuillaume Cabaret
ProductionTrès bien d’accord for Turbo Studio
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