"The titles of the photographs are very important, as they essentially provide the keys for the audience to understand what I am attempting to convey. The titles give the audience a sense of the meaning behind the images, but I am not trying to aggressively force one interpretation on to them. Although some of my pieces are very big, for me it’s not about the scale of the spectacle, but carefully creating the right feeling for the meaning behind the image."
Charles Petillon
"The whole idea of the balloons started as a kind of accident; balloons were just one material on a long list of materials I wanted to explore with my photography. However, when I started to use them in 2007, I was struck by how unique they are at explaining so many things. There is something universal about balloons: they’re not expensive, are accessible to many cultures around the world, and both children and adults can draw their own personal understandings of them. The colour white in most countries holds the idea of something pure or natural; it's a blank canvas on which the audience is able to project their own feelings and ideas. For example, in my piece "Souvenirs de Famille", I wanted it to appear as though the balloons were exploding out of the house, like the memories of the families who had lived there. Everyone has memories like this, but they are all distinctively unique, and it is this amalgamation of both the shared and the individual that I think the balloons are able to demonstrate."
