Sigurður Magnús Matthíasson aka Siggi. Siggi is a strange person who can’t let you staying stoical. The day after my arrival in Iceland, at Grindavík campsite, I meet Jeff, a Quebecer.
We end up in a huge 4×4 to make a trip around the town with Kristinn, boss of the Bryggjan Kaffihùs, the den of the fishermen of Grindavìk.
On our way back, at the end of the day, we go to have a coffee at Kristinn’s. Arrives a big fellow. He is with a friend. They both sit at a table to sip a hot drink. This big fellow with his hazardous gait looks like a regular and is completely at ease with everyone. He comes to greet us, Jeff and me. He speaks English perfectly. I listen to him. He tells me a lot of wacky stories. I wonder who he is. A young alcoholic, a drug addict? I don’t really know where he is bringing me with all those crazy stories. He proposes me to watch him playing characters: an old man, a pregnant man, an alien etc …I look at him. But who is he? Then, he tells me his story. Seven years ago, when he was 18 years old, Siggi had a serious car accident, after which he spent two and a half months in a coma. He miraculously got out but his life will not be the same. Promised for a great future, Siggi can not do much anymore because he has problems of balance, quickly forget what he is told or what he did the day before. In less than 15 minutes, he managed to break my prejudices, make me laugh and touch me so much that emotion and tears rise without restraint. I will stay for 10 days in Grindavík to hang out with Siggi, find out more. We play cards, we drink many cups of cold coffee, we smoke quite a lot of Camel, we laugh a lot together and we take pictures. I really admire him. For me, he is an indestructible Viking that nothing stops. I will spend another 2 weeks with him at the end of my 3 month trip in Iceland to complete the SIGGI’S WORLD serie.
About Frédérick Carnet
Frédérick Carnet (born French the 24th of December 1972) took his first steps in photography at the age of twenty, at the beginning of the 90’s thanks to a friend, a fashion photographer, who introduced him to a world of which he did not know the existence. He very quickly decided to do everything in his power to turn professional. He therefore started to display his work with the FNAC Galleries network. Rather than becoming a photographer’s assistant, Frédérick Carnet preferred to work in Toros Aladjajian’s black and white photography laboratory, whilst pursuing his personal work. It was during his part-time activity in the laboratory that he accomplished 3 series : L’Appartement 33, Eclipses and Une Histoire Comme Si.
Between 1998 and 1999, whilst he was in the middle of completing the Eclipses serie dedicated to Hip Hop Culture in Cergy (Val d’Oise – France), he was awarded a Special Honour of the Kodak Prize for Photography Criticism, a scholarship from the Regional Fund of Contemporary Art of Ile-de-France (FRAC Ile-de-France) and an honour as one of the finalists of HSBC Prize for Photography. From 2000 onwards, his desire to dedicate himself to shots exclusively increased. He finally left Toroslab in 2002 and worked as a photographer for press and advertsing agencies. Frédérick Carnet also attached a lot of importance to the development of his personal series. It was also in this frame of mind that he produced La X in collaboration with Djamel Bouchaïb and Budoka no Kokoro with Léo Tamaki.
In January 2011, Frédérick made the decision to put his career on hold as an advertising photographer. New adventures awaited elsewhere. The first one started in Japan from October 2011 to January 2012 with a photographic study of Nature. From this serie, Frédérick published a book and an exhibition, Nippon 2011. Then, he spent 3 months in Iceland to shoot 4 stories under the title The Sun will note hide behind the hill tonight. From this time he didn’t stop producing personal work in Spain, Germany or France in a full state of freedom.From January 2015, he dedicates his time to his personal artistic projects only. He now lives in Saxony (Germany). [Official Website]
