A photographic conversation
 
 
As a foreigner, some subtleties of English language are still mysteries to me. I can’t help but remembering this conversation I had with a friend as I was trying to figure the difference between belong to and belong in. She explained: “Saying I belong to Baltimore is more like I am there now, and I love it, whereas I belong in Baltimore could either be I'm not there but should be, or I'm there and not going to leave for any reason.” That subtlety and those questions - what belong somewhere, in somewhere, or to somewhere means - is what I am trying to explore every time I am shooting in the streets of Baltimore.

...Random everyday encounters with beauty.

Baltimore is inherently in-between, between North and South, between past glory and uncertain future, between sinking and healing. Director John Waters puts it better: “I would never want to live anywhere but Baltimore. You can look far and wide, but you'll never discover a stranger city with such extreme style. It's as if every eccentric in the South decided to move North, ran out of gas in Baltimore, and decided to stay.”
 
I moved here in January 2017, straight from Paris, and started to craft the images of this series not long after. Baltimore is a gold mine for every visual person, and there is always a need for images challenging the narrative offered by the mainstream about the city.

This ongoing series aims to create interlope places, places that both really exist and only exist on film, places dreamy and unearthly, but also to emphasize the high contrast underlying in the city and in America overall.
 
This series entirely relies on an accidental aesthetic, allowed by the use of film. Images always come out with something unexpected, a loss of control, where beauty can start and grow, just like flowers in abandoned buildings…