FotoDoc
  • Home
  • Contest
    • FotoDoc Photo Contest 2025
      • Enter nowopen call !
      • Latest entries
      • Guidelines
    • FotoDoc Photo Contest 2024 – Winners
    • FotoDoc Photo Contest 2023 – Winners
  • Festival
    • FotoDoc Festival 2025
    • FotoDoc Festival 2024
    • FotoDoc Festival 2023
    • FotoDoc Festival 2022
  • About
  • Portuguese (Brazil)
  • English
No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • Contest
    • FotoDoc Photo Contest 2025
      • Enter nowopen call !
      • Latest entries
      • Guidelines
    • FotoDoc Photo Contest 2024 – Winners
    • FotoDoc Photo Contest 2023 – Winners
  • Festival
    • FotoDoc Festival 2025
    • FotoDoc Festival 2024
    • FotoDoc Festival 2023
    • FotoDoc Festival 2022
  • About
  • Portuguese (Brazil)
  • English
No Result
View All Result
FotoDoc
No Result
View All Result
Devotional

The Gathering Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer, before the procession begins. Pilgrims encircle the altar. Voices hush. Candles flicker. The sacred air thickens with expectation.

Devotional

Pierre de La SaussaybyPierre de La Saussay
11 de June de 2025
in Photo Essay

Selected in FotoDoc Photo Contest 2025

Each May in Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer (France), Roma pilgrims from across Europe gather to honor Sara e Kali, their patron saint. Amid the music, procession, and tides of tradition, one detail returns again and again with quiet power: the human hand. This series focuses on the hand as the purest expression of faith. It reaches, lifts, clutches, and protects. It lights candles, touches icons, guides the next generation. In this pilgrimage, it is not the face that prays first. It is the hand.

But these hands do more than worship. They also carry history. Tattoos, rings, bracelets, and bangles reflect the cultural identity of the Romani people. Faith and heritage are intertwined, etched into skin, wrapped in silver, passed down through gesture. Photographed in black and white, these images are both document and meditation. I chose to isolate the hands to strip away distraction and focus on the universal language of devotion.

The result is a choreography of belief, embodied in the smallest movement. This is not traditional reportage, nor a purely aesthetic exercise. It is an offering. A quiet testament to how the sacred lives in touch, in craft, in tradition, and in the act of holding something dear. Special thanks to Cécile Domens for her guidance during this pilgrimage.

The Word, Lifted
A Bible raised to the sky during blessing. Leather-bound and gold-embossed, the Word is hoisted above the crowd like a banner of belief.
Flames in Unison
Hands raised with candles during the celebration for Sara e Kali (Sarah the Black). Dozens of flames. One gesture. A congregation becomes a single body reaching upward.
What the Hands Remember
A grip on the embroidered fabric as the icon of Sara e Kali is within reach. Fingertips cling to cloth, memory, and meaning, holding tight when words no longer suffice.
What We Pass Down
In the hush between ritual and noise, a small hand finds shelter. Faith begins here, unspoken, shared.
Black Madonna
A hand touches the robe of Sara e Kali. Reverence without words. The fingers pause where myth meets matter.
To Carry the Sacred
One hand bearing the weight of a holy icon. A gesture shared by many. The divine carried on tired, faithful shoulders.
Procession into Light
Through the arch crowned by the icon, pilgrims step into the daylight. The ceremony ends. The procession begins. Footsteps slow. Light spills across the threshold of belief.

Open Call! Submit Your Work to FotoDoc 2025

Pierre de La Saussay

Pierre de La Saussay

Exploring the beauty and oddity of our world. Paris 🇨🇵

Related Content

Related Posts

O calor que aquece meu coração
Photo Essay

O calor que aquece meu coração

O ensaio traz uma proposta de utilização de luz vibrante quente para expressar o calor do afeto existente em cada...

byOtavio Nascimento
25 de July de 2025
Uma Mesa de Ferro
Photo Essay

Uma Mesa de Ferro

O que uma mesa de ferro pode ter de tão especial? Será o jardim aonde ela está? Ou então os...

byLaura Camargo
25 de July de 2025
Photo Essay

Força de mil vozes ancestrais

Este ensaio nasceu da escuta, e da sensibilidade .É fruto de uma expedição fotográfica na Bahia, onde fui acolhida por...

byCATU
24 de July de 2025
Carnaval em deriva
Photo Essay

Carnaval em deriva

Esse ensaio surgiu em uma das derivas que resultaram no projeto "Caminhagens", um projeto onde uni a fotografia e a...

byJosé Barancelli
23 de July de 2025
O barro que revela
Photo Essay

O barro que revela

Entre passes descalços e risadas sinceras, meninos correm sobre o barro como se o campo fosse o mundo. O sol...

byGabriel Borrelli
23 de July de 2025
GritoDeCarnavalNaPortaDeCasa
Photo Essay

GritoDeCarnavalNaPortaDeCasa

Este ensaio é um recorte sensível do carnaval no bairro do Nordeste de Amaralina, em Salvador(BA). Corpo território ocupando este...

byLany Cruz
23 de July de 2025
  • Home
  • Contest
  • Festival
  • About
  • Portuguese (Brazil)
  • English
No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • Contest
    • FotoDoc Photo Contest 2025
      • Enter now
      • Latest entries
      • Guidelines
    • FotoDoc Photo Contest 2024 – Winners
    • FotoDoc Photo Contest 2023 – Winners
  • Festival
    • FotoDoc Festival 2025
    • FotoDoc Festival 2024
    • FotoDoc Festival 2023
    • FotoDoc Festival 2022
  • About
  • Portuguese (Brazil)
  • English

Vertente Fotografia © 2023