AU COIN DE MA RUE

YEAR ONE:

IN THE STREET

YEAR TWO:

IF YOUR HOUSE WAS

BURNING, WHICH OBJECTS

WOULD YOU BRING WITH YOU?

YEAR THREE:

ONE OF MY BEST
FRIEND.

YEAR FOUR:

7AM/7PM

YEAR FIVE:

A STRANGER IS A

FRIEND YOU HAVEN'T

MET YET

Since I am young, I am fascinated by strangers.

While waiting for a bus, while standing in a line, my eyes are always drawn by a specific person

At that exact moment, I can’t stop wondering what he is thinking, what he is doing, what are his fears and joys.

I am sure I am not unique in this, but the indifference of the public sphere has often puzzled me…I don’t understand how dozens of people cross each other daily without manifesting any feeling. This neutral and apathetic mask…

Personally, some anonymous people leave a real trace on me.

I don’t really know what attracts my eyes? I think I am touched by a certain attitude, an imperfection that makes the person interesting. An intangible something that reflects into their expression.

Seven years ago, I decided to embrace this obsession and decided to capture some of these people passing with a camera.

I bought a 50mm lens, and simply started asking to take their portrait.

After 300 portraits,  I realised that this mark was too ephemeral. I wanted to know more. I wanted to enter their intimate thoughts. I didn’t want to detail the dressed person such as street style photographers, I wanted to “undress” him and as a voyeur, enter his life and thoughts as much as possible.

I decided to recontact 30 persons out of these 300 portraits. I know it was strange and knew I would be confronted to negative responses but these people were crazy enough to let me enter their life.  I photographed them each year on a five year period with each year a different theme.

At first it was a selfish sociological experiment. I thought that meeting them a few times in my life would not change my perspective towards them. But very quickly, a feeling of trust and complicity started to grow. I realized that’s what happen when people are no longer anonymous people anymore. We start caring for them. “A stranger is actually a friend that you haven’t met yet”(William Butler Yeats).