Photographs vs Photographer

For as long as I can remember, I always loved still shots. Some are cinema buffs. For my part, it is the magic these still images that are provoking dreams. Contemplating an image is diving in the heart of a mystery that one’s soul will shape in their own way, to capture a world and to offer it to one’s own imaginary.

It is not the man holding the camera who is important,but the photographer’s vision. If his images do not speak to you, surely the photographer is uninteresting. Images should tell a story, give birth to desires, provoke laughter and pain, in one word, provoke a reaction.

My first camera was a plastic one, no light meter, or focus. No interchangeable lens, nothing. Only a trigger to carry with one’s self, the vision of an instant.

Some photographers aspire to be witnesses of their time, want to testify of what they have seen, “let the world know”. This has never been my approach. Even when at the heart of the war, I have seen the destructive madness of man, these were not images that were of interest to me. I only wanted my thoughts to be projected on to the film. I wanted to open to anyone who would look at the image, a book with no ending in which one would know how to reflect, understand a situation. My images did not feature blood.

In Afghanistan, I have seen children dying at my feet while staring at me. I did not take pictures. I have seen men and women in shreds. I did not take pictures. The film was my heart where all their gazes are etched forever. My pictures showcase life.