The grid: Denis Darzacq’s suspended subjects

There is something uniquely arresting about a body pictured in mid-air. It’s the strange stillness of the moment, the uncertainty of whether it is falling or flying. In the highly stylised portraits of French photographer Denis Darzacq, on show at the Collégiale Saint-Pierre-le-Puellier in Orléans until 24 August, people move through often mundane public spaces – supermarkets, parks, pavements – leaping, dancing, poised like ballerinas or superheroes, all hanging in the frame as though they’re floating. There is energy and possibility even in the stillness. As Darzacq puts it: “Over some 30 years of photography, my concerns have evolved and taken on different forms, but each time the question has remained the same: how do we find our balance in the frame, how do we find our place in society?”