By Maximillien de Lafayette, Syndicated Columnist, London.
Olivier: "Endeavoring to explore and depict instances in time is the
challenge. Different places and people serve as powerful subjects... The
next challenge rests with you to make these photographs come alive."
If you manage to freeze time and bring it back to life in your camera, you become a magician- photographer. If you succeed in conversing with nature and unfold its secrets through lights, shadows and forbidden thoughts, using a camera and its eloquent silence, you walk through immortality and cross the bridge of human banality. For photography is a divine art, and the photographer who captures the hidden and the secret, the holy and the damned, the fragile whispers of time and the unseen is the parallel definition of an immortal artist. Conrad Olivier is that kind of photographer. Unquestionably, one of the world's best photographers. But who in heavens is Conrad Olivier? I asked him this question. And this most talented magician photographer replied with modesty, humility and utmost simplicity...he replied: " I am Conrad Olivier, 33 yrs old, web developer, photographer, landscaper / hardscaper. I was born in Louisiana. I grew up in Northern Texas and got a degree in Fine Art from the University of Texas at Austin (Studio Art). I lived and worked in Denver CO for the last 7 years." And, at the very end of his statement, he added: "Yes, Max, I studied French for 5 years. But, Spanish overtook that language in my brain."
Once a year, the Monthly Herald in London selects the world's best photographer. The folks there go through tons of photos, thousands and thousands of bios, resumes, exhibitions pamphlets, brochures, catalogues, they also attend zillions of photography shows and exhibitions. And each one of the Selection Committee goes home, sink his or her head in more piles and piles of photos, to come up with one single nomination: THE BEST PHOTOGRAPHER OF THE YEAR. Fortunately or unfortunately, I am one of those who sits on the Nomination and Selection Committee Board. My colleagues, I meant some of my colleagues are pompous and difficult. Others are more permissive and fun to work with. Unquestionably or perhaps, my learned colleagues could and would think the same thing about me. And I don't mind for the time being, for I am sitting here before the majestic and mesmerizing work of a young American Photographer who is a complete enigmatic question mark for me. Conrad Olivier? Conrad who? I have never heard of him! And for this alarming and banal reason, I deserve to be shot. For this man walks tall and with pride among the world's best photographers. To call him a genius, would be an insult. For the qualitative and quantitative values and measurements of the word or the adjective "GENIUS" become irrelevant and purely materialistic, if we have to ascend to the throne of cosmic beauty, reach for the firmament, fly far away from the absurdity of intellectualism and human parables...and touch the face of God.
Continues on the next page.