I am an enthusiast photographer working in the region of Geneva, in Switzerland. I am particularly fond of analog cameras with which I do 90% of my pictures, from 35mm format up to 4×5 large format with a Linhof Technika IV. Although in minority, I still use digital equipment pour particular situations, like concert photography, astrophotography, or simply for hiking light. So, I am not an extremist of analog photography: I try to enjoy photography as much as possible and that is not the soul in torment that I go back to digital if judged adapted to get the expected result. At the end, only the result matters: as a fact, some of my best shots were obtained with a smartphone. Will you find them? 🙂

My photography is mostly interested in street life and documenting. Because of my personnality, it is rather unobstructive. But as used to say Robert Capa: “If your pictures are not good enough, you are not close enough.” This is a motive that I find quite true generally, and I try to follow it. My masters in the domain would be Garry Winogrand, Anders Petersen, or Ed van der Elsken. Their photos touch me because they are close from people from all horizons, they tell stories of everyday lives, show the world as it is or has been, in its beauty and ugliness. They make me reflect about our society.

In this vein, I have a deep respect for journalists and war  photographers, risking their life to show us the worst but that are also more and more often seen as targets.

My practice of street photography

I love taking pictures of people in the street and document street life. This practice sometimes leads me to take close-up portraits of people unaware of it and without their formal agreement before hand. While this can be pretty intrusive, a smile exchange is generally the way out – so far I had no physical dispute – and I take it as a sign of agreement.

It is unfortunately required to get interesting pictures: asking permission of people results in unnatural, “identity” portraits, while what I am looking for are everyday faces (happy or grumpy). I however understand that diffusion of such portraits on the internet is a problem. So, if you find yourself portrayed in one of my gallery and want me to remove it, please drop me an email and I will do so as soon as possible.