Camille Farrah Lenain
Camille Farrah Lenain is a French-Algerian documentary and portrait photographer who grew up in Paris, studied Photography at l’ESA in Brussels and at ICP in New York City (virtual). She relocated to New Orleans in 2013, where she teaches Photography at Tulane University, and works on long-term projects with a focus on empathetic portraiture, exploring the notions of representation, collective memory and plural identities.
Her clients include : The New York Times, Rolling Stone, The Washington Post Magazine, T Magazine, Sierra Magazine, ELLE Magazine, The Bitter Southerner and Libération. Her photographs have been exhibited internationally, including at the Ogden Museum of Southern Art, the Arab World Institute, Festival Incadaques, Les Boutographies, PhotoVogue Festival. She was previously an Artist in Residence at the Joan Mitchell Center and Nunu’s Arts Collective.
Camille is a member of Women Photograph, Diversify Photo and Authority Collective, and works between France and Louisiana.
Artist Statement
The Waiting follows the pursuit of female hunters and their intimate relationship to the land, to their harvest and to each other. The women take us on a meditative journey from stillness to the irreversible act of killing. Such as the goddesses of the hunt, they embrace the tension between protector and destroyer, fertility and the moon. Exploring the mystical trails between ancient myths and the 21st century, the hunting sisterhood rejects traditional roles and embodies the predator in a society that often views them as prey.
Jennifer, 2019
Release Date: June 9, 2023
This photograph is actually from the first roll of film I ever shot for this project, in the fall of 2019! I started digging on Facebook groups for hunting in Louisiana to find women interested in participating in the project. Jennifer was the first person to answer in this male dominant hunting group, and we decided to meet up.
I drove up to the small town of Bunkie, Louisiana, in the middle of rice and crawfish fields. Jennifer lived with her mother and stepfather, a bit out of the town, surrounded by a compound of maybe 8 others houses. It felt very secluded, on the other side of a tiny bridge, a place I probably wouldn’t have found if I was just driving around.
Jennifer was 17 years old at the time, home schooled, mostly of Aztec descent, supported Trump, and did not know any other women hunting. She learned with her father, and would go hunting with other boys, or by herself on the bayou by her house (pictured in this photograph). Since we met, she has moved to Texas, got married and had a baby, and I wonder sometimes if she still hunts.
Offering 2022
Release Date: November 17, 2023
Rachel and Olivier are in love, and love to hunt together.
They live in a tiny house in the South of France, a little bit outside of Arles. I stayed with them many times, documenting their hunt and their quiet rituals. They wake up before dawn, their five dogs whining and howling of excitement, while they quietly drink their quick coffee before hitting the road. For waterfowl hunting, they go to a rice field in Camargue, and sit together in silence as the sun is about to rise. Waiting together, whispering as they point at birds in the sky.
That morning in the summer of 2022, they killed a mallard duck and a couple snipes. As we were heading back to the truck, Olivier picked a few saladelle, a species of flowers of the Camargue region. He offered the tiny bouquet to Rachel, as they were walking back in the morning sun. They set everything on the back of the truck, getting ready to pack up. This still life reminds me of the special relationship they share, this capacity of waiting together for hours with comfort, a pleasure in hunting that comes before the one of killing.