Series

After some difficult years, I opened my first photo laboratory in 1974. I photographed weddings, christenings, families... to support my family. My first camera was my father's old Kodak 6x9, then a Zenit-E given to me by my sister. At the time, I also used photography to reproduce my subjects on canvas. At the same time, I developed my own personal, auteur photography, as a natural extension of my eye as a painter. A friend once said to me: ‘Your photos of paintings are stronger than your paintings themselves’. So I put away the brushes.

To each his own. My business is to create images, not texts. I've never tried to explain my photographs. My task, my vision, is to tell a story through images. To show the everyday life of Malagasy people: what we see and, above all, what we don't always see. The little things in life that we forget, the simple gestures, the silent struggles, the bursts of joy despite everything. Beauty often hides a trace of drama, imperceptible but very strong.

I have been photographing Madagascar for almost 50 years. Through my images I try to capture gestures, presence and emotions. Simple fragments of life that can be shared and feel these moments. I photograph what I experience, what I feel. It's instinctive. My mother was French, my father was Chinese, but my deepest identity is here with the Madagascans. I photograph them because I am one of them.