We all live in a house on fire, no fire department to call; no way out, just the upstairs window to look out of while the fire burns the house down with us trapped, locked in it.
NO PICTURES CAN BE USED WITHOUT PERMISSION ALL PICTURES ©Olli BERY

olli-bery.com
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CRUSADE:

I should be dead or in Prison.
Instead, I am alive and surrounded by love.

These are not simply photographs but heartbeats.
They are real. I have lived each one of them.
They are the bitter taste of Revenge and are dedicated to the memory of my mistakes, painful blisters of the past.
A summary of moments in solitude, lived without glory, sometimes on an empty stomach or with alcohol filled veins, burnt out by life's challenges.

Journalism during years, used for its honest feelings which I had lived, hardened me to the four corners of Europe and elsewhere.
Maybe too much so, for too enganged in the comprehension of others, I had forgotten to look at my own life without removing my eye from the viewer, wounding my loved ones and myself deeply.

The street took me back one self destructive morning in which I finally understood the true meaning of freedom:
Just another word that signifies nothing more to loose.


I then ruined myself in it, walking to exhaustion, photographing without rest, with no other goal than to find a pretext to help me keep breathing.

Without my precious friends I would not have heard the whisper, so difficult to acknowledge, it's positive persistence that defies adversity and which would say to me that I must continue to live all the while documenting my own inferno.

(Henceforth)
The apparent blackness in each photo is inversely proportionate to my present feelings.
Hope springs violently from the deep blacks and rises to the attack of my own reason.
To allow oneself to live one more moment with love, seems finally and simply to be complex.

All is well.
Without compromise.


A big thanks to Yann Linsart/the Viewer(theviewer.fr) for his extreme preciseness in reading my work, for his trust in integrating me in this project and for our renewed friendship.

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Olli Bery is a freelance Photographer.
Born in 1973, he lives in Belgium.

For 10 years, he divided his time between socialy engaged photojournalism in Europe and in the United States, and also worked as an industrial reporter for the French media agencie Cerise Noire.

Positioned on a high end sector, his knowledge and his work ethic are put in service in French television as a consultant (CANAL+, FRANCE2, CANAL JIMMY, M6...), in media and publicity as well as in Cinema. He has also collaborated with various national and European reviews (magazines).

In October of 2009, he and his brother Philippe Bery created "Un Oiseau dans la Mains-films et instants", a filmed structure in constant visual evolution, which alows him to complete his own photographic work with a more commercial approach but still without any compromise.

Between January and July 2011 his work has been shown in London, Brussels and Arles (during the OFF festival, photographic encounters in collaboration with Yann Linsart and THE VIEWER magazine).

Currently he is primarily working on CRUSADE, a film for the agency WOMAN MANAGEMENT Paris, and is in close collaboration with the two Belgian bands AMEN RA and OATHBREAKER, for whom he creates series of photographes as well as a music video for the american label DEATHWISH.

In 2012 two exhibitions are already planned both in Belgium and Canada. (more to come soon)