REGARD

My project is a story of regard.  When I started giving conferences in English I realized that when I decided to quit everything else to do this project, I might have been making a cultural choice. Would I have lived this adventure if my mother tongue was another.  In French there is only one word for eyes, looks, outlook.  So when I thought that I wanted to capture le  regard of  men, women and children. I wanted to capture all of their life from within in their eyes.

There may be a psychological foundation to my attraction to the word.  When I was visiting the families of Europe my father came to visit me. One evening, around the table with friends in Paris, he declared to everyone, that when I was a baby, I was ugly. No one had ever told me that. He added that as people did not dare say anything they would exclaim: “Did you see these eyes!”  I understood a little more why le regard has always been an important tool of communication.

I was also influenced by my work in Advertising. From the very beginning of this project, I imagined representing people of the planet by photographing them in close ups. This would help to understand the language of the eyes and to go deep, to draw or to discover from their eyes, their life story.  I quickly understood that it was essential to present people in their environment. I imagined looking at the scene using wider camera lenses and then came the idea of the family; this was the place I would learn to know men, women and children.

Humanity would be my road towards understanding my life on earth, she would become my master and transform my own regard..outlook. I am a life observer.