Trending Photo News No. 29: The best photo book of the first half of the year, Henri Roy's "Impossible Island" shows magical realism

"The mysterious title 'Impossible Island' comes from the fact that for me, photography represents a spiritual journey."

So says Haitian-French photographer Henry Roy. His latest photo book, "Impossible Island" (Loose Joints), which also serves as the catalogue for his exhibition at The Art Gallery of Western Australia in Perth, Australia, is by far the best photo book of the first half of 2025. The book mixes portraits, landscapes, and deeply personal images taken around the world, including his native Haiti in the Caribbean, Ibiza in Spain, various African countries, and Paris, where he lives. Yet, with a beautifully unified worldview, the book exudes a euphoric feeling, transporting the viewer to a haven. The poetic texts he includes throughout the book are also mesmerizing, and the stunning harmony between images and text is intoxicating.

Originally from Haiti, Roa sought political asylum with his family in France at the age of three. While growing up in France, he became interested in photography after a friend took him to his family's darkroom.

"You know how an image slowly emerges from photographic paper immersed in developing solution in a darkroom? I was so shocked by that sight that I instinctively decided to become a photographer."

For Roa, photography became a way of "revealing something that is normally invisible." He says that the elusive nature of his own identity as a Haitian refugee living in France may have also attracted him to the power of photography to "re-examine something."

When he first began studying photography, Loa says his role models were fashion photography masters like Richard Avedon and Irving Penn. However, his teacher also actively taught other subjects like film and art in his photography classes. Loa is grateful for his teachers' teachings, saying they "made me interested in culture in general and helped me grasp the big picture of art." While he continued to use classic fashion photography as a reference, by the time he graduated, the trends in European photography were beginning to change dramatically.

"When I was starting my career as a photographer, I came across magazines like The Face, iD, and Dazed & Confused, and was deeply influenced by the images they produced. They were very free, had an amateur feel, and were low-tech. I was drawn to these photographers and their experimental spirit. Coincidentally, my girlfriend knew Ellen Fleiss, co-editor-in-chief of Purple, and when I sent her some of my work, she loved it, and that's how I got to work at Purple."

The photographers who most inspired Loa at the time were Jurgen Teller and Wolfgang Tillmans, frequent contributors to Purple. Loa says, "There's a wonderful consistency in the photographs they take and the work they produce. You can really sense the photographer's perspective in all of them."

Roa started out working for magazines and then moved on to work on advertising, but in all of these cases he was conscious of incorporating his own artistic perspective into his photographs.

"I'm by no means a good fashion photographer. I'm not particularly interested in fashion itself. This is my attitude as a photographer. Of course, I've done a lot of commissioned work, portraits and a little bit of fashion. But at the same time, I've developed my own unique imagery that reflects myself as a whole. I try to create images without using artificial effects; images that are firmly rooted in reality. But at the same time, when you dream, there's a sense that reality fluctuates or disappears. I want to use these realistic images to portray a surreal feeling. So I don't think of myself as a photojournalist. I try to go beyond reality with my photographs, using my personal and deep emotions."

Roa credits his methodology of reframing reality to his native Haiti.

"I call myself an animist. It's connected to my cultural background. I was born in Haiti, where there is a culture of Voodoo (note: a unique Haitian religion that is a fusion of West African religion and Catholicism. It is based on animism and believes that spirits can possess humans). I'm not a practitioner of Voodoo, but in Haiti there is a sense where reality and dreams are mixed together, and this is the idea that 'the world is inhabited by invisible forces.' It's exactly this idea that I want to express in my work. The term 'magic realism' in Latin American literature is based on this idea, isn't it? Yes, I think the novels of Japanese author Haruki Murakami are also 'magic realism.'"

As you alternate between the images and texts contained in this book—yes, reading is a more appropriate word than watching—you feel as if you are traveling with Roa.

"I pursue timeless images that are free from any specific place or time. This book is made up of photographs taken in about 10 countries, but I have made it difficult to identify which photographs belong to which location. I have intentionally left out clues that would allow the reader to identify the place and time of the photographs. I think this creates a unique sense of drifting."

This mysterious title, which could be literally translated as "Impossible Island," was actually inspired by a specific subject.

"The book's title, Impossible Island, is a reference to Es Vedra, a small island just off Ibiza that appears many times in the book. It's an island that's almost like a tower of huge rocks, and I've been there many times since I was invited there when I started taking photographs. It's a very magical island, almost like an imaginary one. I have a desire to feel the same wherever I go. This feeling is also related to my being an exile. If you leave your birthplace - in my case, the island of Haiti, a place of no return - you will never return to a place that is exactly the same. Wherever you go, you are a stranger. So one has to make a place for themselves. I think my photographs help with that."

Robert Cook of the Art Gallery of Western Australia, curator of Roa's exhibition, said of her photographs:

"Our museum is holding exhibitions under the theme, 'Photography doesn't just report on the world, it gives us the perspective we need to survive in it.' Loa's photographs fit perfectly into this context. He creates poetic and political works that are needed in our time. His photographs have a distinctly global character, in the sense that they capture the modern feeling of 'not belonging anywhere.' When we look at photographs, we don't actually look carefully at movie stars, landscapes, or people's faces. We see them as an 'act of approaching' the subject, and we simply consume the images. However, Loa's photographs encourage us to look at things carefully, and do not consume the images."

This sense of floating in the world of lore, an aesthetic that does not point to a specific time or place, turns the photograph into a timeless time machine, which is both beautiful and a little sad.

"I see my photography as a way of sculpting my own life. What I love most about photography is that, unlike painting, to take a photograph I have to go to the location. That realism is crucial to me. Photography allows me to travel and connect me with people. This book was born from those experiences. It is a poetic narrative. I call it a 'floating narrative'. That is to say, it does not tell a specific story, but alludes to a world, shows a personal universe. I call this the poetry of photography. It also includes a resistance to the commonly-told reality of 'this is the world'."

After this exhibition, Roa has plans for various exhibitions and publications, one of which is a project in Japan.

"I've been commissioned by Edna Dumas of Space Un, a gallery in Tokyo, to stay and create in Japan, which I'm really looking forward to. I'll also be publishing a book based on an exhibition in Senegal later this year. For me, these will all have the same themes, just like in the past, wherever I go."

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