A group of street children in Lomé, Togo, they live around Adampson Street. The colour pictures are the ones they took of their everyday life. I took the black and white ones

Depuis 2001, je photographie des baraques et des préfabriqués d'après-guerre. J’ai vécu pendant 15 ans au Royaume-Uni où j’ai pu alimenter ma passion pour les préfabriqués d’après-guerre en les photographiant, en recueillant les histoires et les souvenirs de leurs habitants, en les mettant en valeur (enfin j’espère) à travers des expos, des ouvrages que j’ai écrits (dont un pour Historic England/Liverpool University Press et un pour Bloomsbury) et un musée que j’ai créé The Prefab Museum. En France, depuis 2016, je passe une bonne partie de mon temps à continuer de satisfaire ma passion pour les baraques en les dénichant, les recensant, photographiant, filmant, dessinant etc… D’autant plus que j’ai rencontré mon alter ego des baraques - d’ailleurs, dans le micro-sphères des baraques, on nous surnomme « Dupond & Dupont », Mickaël Sendra, président de l’association Mémoire de Soye, qui a remonté trois baraques d’après-guerre en micro-musées à Ploëmeur dans le Morbihan. En partenariat avec la ville de Lorient, nous avons, avec le fruit de notre travail, créé l’exposition multimédia Préfabuleux qui a été exposée d’octobre 2019 à juin 2020 à Lorient. Ce projet particulièrement cher à mon coeur évolue, grandit, prend différents chemins ou formes au fil des années mais ne quitte jamais la vieille valise qui m'accompagne toujours. I have been photographing post-war prefabs since 2001. I lived in the UK for 15 years where I could feed my passion for prefabs by photographing and filming them, recording their residents’ stories and memories. I had publications and exhibitions, published two books on the subject with Bloomsbury and Historic England and founded the Prefab Museum. Since I have moved back to France in 2016 I am spending quite a lot of time maintaining my passion for prefabs - baraques as we call them here - by spotting them, and of course, still photographing them, filming, recording and even drawing them! I am also very glad I found a French alter ego, Mickaël Sendra, who created a micro-museum of « baraques » in Lorient, Brittany, and who is as mad as I am for prefabs! With him and in partnership with the city of Lorient, I had a 9 months solo show, Préfabuleux, on prefabs in Lorient from October 2019 till June 2020. My prefab project obviously means a lot to me but although it changes, grows and takes different forms and directions, I always take it with me in my old suitcase.

They were born in the early 1980s under Ceausescu’s ultra-natalist regime. They all grew up in the same orphanage in Popricani, a village near Iasi in north-east Romania. Through 30 portraits I am aiming to find out what happened to the children who were abandoned in Ceausescu’s dreadful institutions the Western world only discovered in the early 1990s. I met Popricani’s children in 1993. With friends we had set up a charity to provide humanitarian aid to a few « casa de copii » - children’s houses - in north-east Romania. We decided very early to focus on the orphanage of Popricani. There we were lucky to meet Dan Palimaru, a French-speaking social worker with whom we built a strong and long-lasting work relationship. 1993 was also the year I started taking pictures of the kids and I haven’t stopped since. During this ongoing project I have lost track of some of them. A few got married and founded families. Others moved abroad in search of a better life, stayed or came back. Several tragically disappeared. This photo essay with images found in my archive is not only a way to retrace the footsteps of these orphans but is also a reminder of a vicious system which forced parents to abandon their children. GET THE BOOK: https://www.aralseaproductions.com/ceausescus-orphans-photobook 
Ils sont nés au début des années 1980 sous le régime ultra-nataliste de Ceausescu. Tous ont grandi dans l’orphelinat de Popricani, près de Iasi dans le nord-est de la Roumanie. Au travers de 30 portraits, j'ai voulu retracer le parcours de ces enfants abandonnés dans ces orphelinats de l'horreur que l'Occident n'a découverts qu'au début des années 90. Trente ans après la chute du dictateur roumain en décembre 1989, que sont devenus ces orphelins revenus de l'enfer? C'est en 1993 que j'ai fait la connaissance de ces enfants. Avec des amis, nous avions décidé de monter une association humanitaire pour apporter de l’aide à plusieurs « casa de copii » - maisons d’enfants - de Moldavie roumaine. Très vite, nous avons concentré nos efforts sur une institution en particulier, celle de Popricani. Nous avons eu la chance de pouvoir collaborer avec Dan Palimaru, l'un des éducateurs francophones avec qui nous avons lié des liens professionnels et amicaux très forts.  Mon travail de photographe a démarré cette même année et se poursuit encore aujourd'hui. Ces trente années n'ont pas été linéaires : j'ai perdu la trace de certains de ces orphelins avant de les retrouver. Certains se sont mariés, ont fondé une famille, d’autres ont tenté leur chance à l’étranger, y sont restés ou ont fini par revenir dans leur pays natal. Quelques-uns ont disparu volontairement, d'autres dans des circonstances plus tragiques. Ce recueil d’images retrouvées dans mes archives est à la fois une façon de retracer à nouveau les destins de ces orphelins et de revenir sur la folie d’un régime qui poussait à l’abandon des enfants. 

Collages Mixing, cutting, glueing, manipulating images to tell stories, freeze and immortalise moments, memories, this is how I turned my obsession with images into a photographic journey, creating collages. Created with my own photos and family archive images, they are very personal but also evocative to anyone longing for an embellished past, childhood lost memories and feelings, insouciance and happiness. Life Aquatic is an ongoing series of collages I make with prints of my own photos. There are shot on slide films and x-processed. Hence the intensity of their colours. I have always loved the sea, the sun and pools. For me these images tell short stories of happy afternoons by the sea or by the pool, stories evoking nostalgia and lovely memories.

... C'est André Breton lui-même qui l'aurait dit à propos de Cuba.

D-Day veterans from the landing in Normandy on the 6th of June 1944. These American, British and French soldiers survived the horror of D-Day and were photographed in 2004, on the 60th anniversary of D-Day either in London or in Normandy. They all landed in Normandy either on Utah Beach, Omaha Beach, Juno, Sword or Gold beaches. The operation was the largest amphibious invasion in world history, with over 160,000 troops landing on 6 June 1944. It marked the beginning of the Battle of Normandy which lasted till the 1st of September 1944. Over 425,000 Allied and German troops were killed, wounded or went missing during the Battle of Normandy.

Carrier Girls in Togo In Lomé, Togo, carrying goods in markets is woman's work, although it is man's work in other African cities. The carrier girls of Lomé belong to the same ethnic group, originally from villages along the border between Togo and Ghana. They work hard all day long, every day except Sundays. Their lack of education is often exploited by merchants or clients. They aim to make enough money to go back to their villages and start businesses: dressmaking or hairdressing. Despite their very hard lives, the carrier girls of Lomé have a very strong camaraderie. They say : «We are all sisters of the same family».

From couriers to kids doing tricks, from bike polo to Rollapaluzas, fixies are taking over the streets of London and the rest of the UK...

The gloomy project I have always felt gloomy from time to time in my life. The feeling of gloominess increased in Summer 2008 because of what we call in French "la conjoncture" : credit crunch, recession, working more and more to get less and less money. Ups and downs. Well, more downs by the way. I even went to a gloomy night some gloomy experts organise every Saturday night in an Islington club. It comforted me: I was not the only one willing to express my gloominess. That's how the idea of The Gloomy Project came up: I contacted some friends and acquaintances, asked them if they happened to be gloomy and if they felt gloomy enough to be photographed in a place that made them feel particularly gloomy. From Ikea on a Sunday afternoon to disused rail tracks in North London, here is a first selection of gloomy portraits. This is an on-going project. Gloominess is an on-going feeling. There will always be gloomy people and more photographs to take.

There are around 300,000 Romani Gypsies in the UK. They are originally from Northern India and arrived in Britain at the beginning of the 16th century. Irish Travellers (their number is estimated to 30 000 in the UK) arrived much later, mainly in the 20th century and are of Irish origin. Both groups are nomadic although, nowadays, only about 50 % of Gypsies and Travellers in Britain live in caravans. Even if they live in a house, they take their culture inside with them. Yet from different origins, Romani Gypsies and Irish Travellers have always lived alongside and inter-married with each other.

Murphy Village, North Augusta, South Carolina is a community of around 2,000 Irish Travellers who settled on Edgefield Road in the late 50s-60s. They originally come from Ireland. One of the first Irish Travellers who came to the USA is Tom Carroll. He arrived in New York in the middle of the 19th Century to escape from misery and financial distress created by the Potato Famine in Ireland (1845-1852). He then went to Boston where there was a large community of Irish settlers in Boston. He quickly found work in a tannery. After working for several months, Tom Carroll was able to get his brother Patrick to the US, who also brought his other brothers Jimmy and John. Very soon many of their relatives migrated to the US. Just before the Civil War (1861-1865) the Travellers slowly moved to the South, living in Georgia ,South Carolina, and Tennessee. There, they began to travel throughout the South buying mules and horses to trade and sell them among the farming communities. As the town of North Augusta began to grow, many Catholics relocated there from the Northeast. Father Murphy, an Irish immigrant himself, was made its Pastor. He encouraged the travellers to buy land a few miles north of the town. Murphy Village was born. The main family names are Carroll, Sherlock, O’Hara, Gorman and only a few others. While men mainly work asphalting roads and driveways, painting barns in states as far as Ohio and Michigan, or selling machines. Women stay at home and raise the children. They still speak Cant, an old form of Gaelic and most of them are practising Catholics. The community is very reclusive. On one side of Edgefield Road, where St Edward Church was built which is the original Murphy Village, people still live in trailers and mobile homes, although, on the other side of the road, Travellers live in huge brand new mansions which can only raise suspicion in every outsider’s mind. How can people who live from asphalting, trading machines and painting barns afford to build such houses? Irish Travellers from Murphy Village are regularly accused of different scams. Several court cases have been occuring for life insurance fraud, racketeering, scams. About 50 Irish Travellers are now in Custody. In 2016, the DSS (Department of Social Services) took six girls, as young as six years old, from Murphy Village under allegations of sexual abuse. Arranged marriages have been part of the village tradition for decades and the Irish Travellers were accused of under-age marriages. After 3 months, all the girls were brought back to their families after staying in foster care. “We don’t marry them under-age, we get them engaged very young and wait for the legal age to marry them”, explains Tammy, an Irish Traveller from Murphy Village. In such a tense situation, it is not surprising that Murphy Village residents are not very keen to talk to strangers and hide from cameras.

The Isogaisa Festival started in 2009. Isogaisa is the only shamanic festival in the northern part of Scandinavia and have participants from all parts of Sápmi (Sweden, Norway, Finland, Russia) as from other European countries. The festival runs for a week starting with lectures, workshops and nature walks from Monday until Thursday and then has its main events during the weekend. The festival is run by the organization Isogaisa with Ronald Kvernmo as its director. Kvernmo is a member of the Sami community and is an author, cultural worker and shamanic practitioner who both studied Sami religion academically at University of Tromsø and attended the Saivo Sjamanskole[1] run by author and shaman Ailo Gaup. Isogaisa is described as a social meeting place where different cultures blend. The old Sami spiritual way of seeing the world is combined with modern ways of thinking. Events of ceremonies, lectures, music/dance/theater performances are held where indigenous people present their own culture and practices and then take part in performances of other groups. As using alcohol and other substances to alter consciousness never have been the way of traditional Sami shamanism, according to the official webpage, the festival has a very strict no drugs policy. This means in practice that if a participant enter the festival under the influence of anything stronger than coffee they will be asked to leave, festival band taken of them without any refund and not allowed back for a 10 year period. Another reason for not allowing any drugs is that all members, young and old, should feel comfortable to attend. The creation of this event is important for the spread of information regarding the situation for indigenous cultures around the world and their struggle for survival in the contemporary world. The sharing of information between cultures creates a connection between people from all parts of the world and helps support them in the keeping and renewal of customs that for many years have suffered religious persecution. To be able to socially connect and create networks have helped communities to gain support and communicate information that is otherwise unavailable for the public. The Isogaisa Festival have brought up many relevant questions for shamanic practice and culture and has been shown support from the Sami Parliament of Norway, the Cultural Council and the organization of shamans in Norway. The festival is held every Summer, mid-August. www.isogaisa.org

LES GENS SUR LA PLAGE : a collection fine art prints / une collection de tirages d'artistes Beach is a series of over-exposed images of seaside resorts all over the world. I have always loved going to the beach, wherever I was. Beaches are unique in-between spaces where people expose themselves to the sun, the sea, the others. There are no barriers, just moments, sensations and emotions we all want to relive. For me the Beaches series is all about memory, childhood and nostalgia. Beach est une série d’images surexposées de plages du monde entier. J’aime les plages, leur univers unique d’entre-deux, où l’on s’expose au soleil, à la mer, aux autres. Il n’y a pas de barrières, seulement des moments, des sensations, des émotions liées à la nostalgie, aux souvenirs, à la mémoire. Beach est une série de photographies de plages animées par le mouvement des vagues, du sable et du vent mais aussi par celui des hommes, des femmes, des enfants qui s’approprient ces espaces uniques.

Original 18 x 24 cm collages made with my own prints of images I shot on a film camera.

Love is in the Irish air... Lisdoonvarna, le festival où trouver l'âme soeur Le "Matchmaking festival" de Lisdoonvarna en Irlande est le plus important festival de rencontres d'Europe. Chaque année, de fin août à début octobre, des milliers de célibataires venus du monde entier se retrouvent dans ce charmant village du sud-est de l'Irlande. Au programme : musique, danses, concerts, et surtout : consultation privée avec Willie, le Matchmaker, l'homme par qui l'amour arrive ! Je vous propose un reportage texte et photos du festival de l'an dernier, au cours d'un weekend de septembre particulièrement riche en émotions. A l'aspect "dating", danses, rencontres et rencontre exclusive avec Willie, je propose également d'ajouter une dimension touristique au sujet. Lisdoonvarna se situe en effet dans un décor idyllique de campagne vallonnée irlandaise, à quelques kilomètres du bord de mer.

Everyone of us needs these little moments when one is in his or her own unreachable world. Moments when we are at peace with ourselves, when we can feel close to a certain form of happiness. In French we call them "moments de répit". I have asked some friends what their "moments de répit" were and if I could photograph them during one of them. Here are the stills from the private "moments de répit" they have let me capture...

I have always loved Morrissey. It might sound very "mainstream" but as tens of thousands of gloomy teenagers, The Smiths changed my life. Morrissey was singing about himself but he was talking to me. I loved his songs, his words, his music. Later in the 90s, I was not that fond of him and his stuff. It was like a separation. Then he came back, that was quite unexpected. He played at the Royal Festival Hall in June 2004. It was magic. I fell in love with the man again and decided I should take this love for him forward. I got in touch in touch with fans who love him to the point they look like him, behave like him. I asked them which pictures of Morrissey inspired them and then we recreated the shots. Here are their portraits. J'ai toujours aimé Morrissey. Cela peut sembler un peu "bateau" mais comme des dizaines de milliers d'adolescents déprimés, The Smiths ont changé ma vie. Les chansons de Morrissey parlaient de lui et elles me parlaient aussi. J'adorais ses chansons, ses paroles, ses mélodies. Plus tard, dans les années 90, je me suis éloignée du grand homme, je n'étais plus vraiment fan de son travail. C'était comme une séparation. Et puis, il est revenu. C'était plutôt inattendu. Il a joué au Royal Festival Hall en juin 2004. C'était magique. Je suis retombée amoureuse de lui et j'ai décidé de pousser cet amour plus loin. J'ai contacté des fans qui aiment Morrissey au point de lui ressembler, d'adopter les mêmes attitudes. Je leur ai demandé quelles photos de Morrissey les inspiraient et nous avons recréé les images. Voici leurs portraits.

My gloomy Valentine It's that time of the year. It's cold. It's dark. And then, the pink comes; and the hearts, all over the shop windows, and interiors. As if everybody was there to remind you that you're not sorted. Loser. To crown it all, it's an assault on good taste, so much it must push even the well paired to the edge of splitting up in protest. And then comes the day. Usually the place to be moody in peace, the tube too is full of couples with their regulatory red roses. You hope they really hate each other and will spend the entire meal going through the motions but really thinking about all the years wasted with someone who appears so strikingly less desirable, in every respect, than that one, there, sitting on the diagonal. Franck Arnaud

My own private Uzbekistan is a personal vision of a country that fascinates me. I have always found there was something mysterious and magical about this part of the world but also something attractive and slightly frightening. In May 2007, I had the opportunity to travel in Uzbekistan: Tashkent, Samarkand and the Fergana Valley. I was there to take pictures of disabled persons for the French charity Handicap International. I met extraordinary people, photographed them in their everyday life and at work. I chose to show their portraits and mix them with images I took every now and then during my journey in this wonderful country. Click Me

A few years ago, I found a forgotten film roll in my late grand-father's camera. It took me weeks to find a lab able to process the film. It was a Kodachrome II film dating from the 70s. Then I was told that it could take months before the film could be processed, as the lab needed to receive a susbstantial number of this type of films before processing them. It took years. I had almost forgotten about it till I received the slides. They were very damaged but I could still recognise me in the photos, aged 5 or 6. My grand-father shot them on a sunny day at the holiday house in Normandy where I used to spend most of the Summer. I have always been fascinated by old pictures, by the memory they manage to fix, freeze in time, then suddlenly bring back to their viewers. They can be very emotional little things. Beyond the stills, images revive chapters of our lifes. With my grand-father's photos, I decided to do something. The idea of superimposing them to pictures of the same places now came naturally. Time had passed but the feelings and the emotions were the same : a mix of sadness, nostalgia and loneliness. Feelings which, each Summer, during the same repetitive family holidays, still oppress me. They are fixed on this series of images which could be superimposed a little bit more each year till they become unreadable, incomprehensible and unwatchable. Till we finally become free from them and from this addictive nostalgia. By working on and with these images, I realised how much nostalgia takes a major place in my work and how much images are able to bring back to life forgotten emotions and sensations thought to be lost forever.

"It was one of those rare days that it's hot enough to wear a swimming-suit on the beach. So, as the mums sunbathed, all the kids went to splash about in the water. Brighton beach was packed with children laughing to grannies chatting. All the kids had a water fight to see the one would get the most soaked. The thing is, it was not only a great day for us. The mums were laying in the sun the whole afternoon. Well, it was worth while coz they got a great tan ?" Pauline Blanchet, 9

Pirou ghost seaside village in Normandy. Born of a financial fiasco in the 90s, there are still 25 ruins of houses of what was supposed to be a holiday village. It has become a tourist attraction and an organic art hub with French famous artists like JR and Agnès Varda being involved in art projects.

I love prefabs. Some people will think living in a prefab is like living in a box. Yes, it might sound or even look a bit like that but what a lovely, sophisticated box! I am talking about post-war prefabs, erected in a hurry just after the war when Britain was suffering an unprecedented housing shortage. More than 150 000 of these prefabricated houses were erected all over the UK mainly ins small estates. They were luxury to most of the residents who mainly were service men coming back from the war and reuniting with their family. Their prefab became their little castle with all mod cons and even more than any working class could hope for at the time: hot water, toilets inside, a fitted kitchen with a gas fridge and a garden all around the house. Part of the temporary housing programme, they were not supposed to last over a decade. Yet, over 70 years later, a few Thousands are still standing and very much loved. Why do people love their prefab so much, why are they so attached to their "cardboard or tin boxes"? Is it the layout of the prefab, the design of the interior, the garden around? Is the sense of community they created? Or a combination of everything?That's what I have been trying to find out for the last 14 years, since I started taking pictures of prefabs in South London. I have travelled all over the UK, from Redditch to Newport, Chesterfield, Catford and even on the Isle of Lewis to try to draw some answers. I have met wonderful people and come back with their portraits and their moving stories. Here they are for you to discover through this project.

“From the Ashes” is a series of digitally and manually manipulated images about the disappearance of Britain post-war prefabs. Supposed to last 10 years, they were part of the Temporary Housing Programme set up by Churchill Government at the end of WWII. Almost 70 years later a couple of Hundreds of these “palaces for the people” - as they were nicknamed- are still standing and lived in but facing demolition. This work is dedicated to their last residents and to those who had no other choice but to leave their cherished homes. Since 2002 I have been documenting post-war prefabs in the UK and been fascinated by the attachment of the residents to their home. In March 2014, I created the Prefab Museum in an original post-war prefab to celebrate prefab life. The project, originally supposed to last one month, was very successful and kept on being extended… till a fire destroyed it in October 2014. Classified as arson, the police didn’t bother lead a proper investigation to find the perpetrator(s). “Lack of resources”, they said. Shocked and distressed, it took me a few months before moving on and out of the Excalibur Estate. The Prefab Museum is continuing on line and I am confident it will find a new physical home later this year. “From the Ashes” is about demolition, destruction but also about the power of memory one can never destroy.

Le 5 novembre 1978 marquait la première édition de la Route du Rhum, course transtatlantique en solitaire de Saint-Malo à Pointe-à-Pitre. Ce jour-là, j'étais aussi en mer en bateau avec mes grands-parents pour accompagner le départ de la course. Nous avons suivi les bateaux pendant plusieurs miles au large des côtes de Saint-Malo. Mon grand-père m'avait donné un Polaroïd et j'ai pris ces quelques photos. Parmi elles, Manureva et Alain Colas que l'on distingue à la barre. Je me souviens que nous avions suivi le Pen Duick IV le plus loin possible car mon grand-père aimait particulièrement ce trimaran. Ma photo de Manureva est sans doute l'une des dernières images d'Alain Colas avant sa disparition tragique le 16 novembre 1978.

"...the Salton Sea is one of the most remarkable, wrong, beautiful, apocalyptic, baffling, compelling places in california, the united states, the northern hemisphere, and possibly (see aforementioned hyperbole), the world", Moby. In August 2013, I took a ride to the shores of the Salton Sea and got completely captivated by the place, abandoned, in ruins, destroyed, like the aftermath of a war won against nature. I decided to find out if there were old images of the 60s when Salton Sea was a trendy place to go on holiday, where even Elvis Presley came to sing... I found a set of old postcards I used as a background and superimposed images of the desolate landscape by the shores of Salton Sea.

Sleeping Chinese Hong Kong, Shanghai, Nanjing, Beijing, they can sleep anywhere, anyhow, anytime. They can be overwhelmed by strong smells, surrounded by old ladies chatting and arguing, kids playing, they don't care. They sleep, heavily. It just comes to them, the tiredness, the feeling of an unbearable weight upon their eyelids. They can't keep their eyes open anymore. They are so tired and just have the time to sit or lay somewhere and fall asleep. The Chinese are experts in power naps. Is it cultural, necessary because of the climate, the work which is so hard? Well, probably a combination of these reasons...

It's incredible what people hang on to in their lock ups, garages and storage units : Christmas kitsch decorations, books, old computers and wires, teddy bears... In huge cities like London, storage units companies are blossoming. People are more and more mobile and live in smaller spaces. But they still want to keep their st It's incredible what people hang on to in their lock ups, garages and storage units : Christmas kitsch decorations, books, old computers and wires, teddy bears... In huge cities like London, storage units companies are blossoming. People are more and more mobile and live in smaller spaces. But they still want to keep their stuff.

J’ai vécu au Togo entre 1997 et 2001. C’est là-bas que j’ai rencontré Kaka Lawson et que nous sommes devenus amis. Quand j’ai appris qu’il serait chef de mission de l’équipe togolaise olympique, je lui ai demandé si je pouvais suivre ses six athlètes le temps de leur séjour londonien. Kaka s’est montré très enthousiaste ainsi que tous les membres de « Team Togo ». Voici à quoi ressemblait leur quotidien en photos et en vidéos sur http://www.rue89.com/rue89-sport/2012/08/17/jo-intimes-avec-six-champions-du-togo-234669

On Sunday the 23rd of July 2017 I went to Izmailovo flee market in Moscow and bought an 80s Russian camera to a lovely couple who had a stall there. When I came back to France, I gave it to my sister and when I wanted to show her how to work it out, I found out there was a film in it. I had it developed... ... And here I was, with a set of 19 black & white pictures from the 80s mainly showing a young boy at a celebration, at home, with other children and probably his family. Looking at the photos, I came out with this crazy idea : searching for the Russian boy in the photos and give his images back to him. They belonged to him not to me.  I created an instagram account - Looking for the Russian boy - dedicated to the search and a Russian photo magazine - Rosphoto - published an article about my search and the photos. A few weeks later, I found him, or he found me rather! A friend of his had seen the pictures on social media and recognised him. She got in touch with him asking if he thought it was him on the images. At first, he thought it was a scam, a photo montage or something - he had never seen these pictures - but then he recognised his dad, his grand-ma, the school, the flat where he grew up. Then he wondered who I was, why would I do such a thing? He got in touch with via whatsapp, simply writing: “Hello, I am the Russian boy you are looking for, my name is Dmitry!”. It was my turn to be in shock. I really didn’t think I would find him or at least so quickly and easily. He told me he was amazed by my gesture and grateful. “It’s a magic story”, he told. The second shock came when we met for the first time via skype! We happened to get on very well, at first sight. We talked for two hours, first about the photos, the story and the magic of it. The photos I got hold were his first day at school in September 1990. Dmitry was 6 and his uncle Yakov took the pictures. The camera Elikon was his. Yakov’s dad had given it to him hoping he would become a photographer. But he didn’t and became an a painter. The photos I found were the last ones he shot and forgot in the Elikon which laid, forgotten on a shelf for more than two decades. One day, Yakov gave the camera to a friend who unscrupulously sold it at Izmailovo market… Then we talked about ourselves, our lives, our families and soon about the fact we’d love to meet each other in flesh. Well, that was my first : meet the Russian boy to give him his pictures. That’s what we finally did at the end of December in Moscow for a holiday we both will probably never forget and the beginning of a unique friendship. The full story can be read on my blog in both English and French: https://theaccidentalphotographer.me/category/the-russian-boy/ And also, I almost forgot… The story had a massive media coverage (France 2, M6, Russia Today, Russia Beyond, Mon Quotidien…). Dmitry and I found each other in November, it was like an ideal Christmas tale to tell.

PHOTOGRAPHY PROJECT WITH TREEHOUSE SCHOOL AND AMBITIOUS ABOUT AUTISM Through the lens is a photography project I have been developing with Digital Media teacher Indira Ramraj and pupils from TreeHouse School, a school for children who have a diagnosis of autism, in Muswell Hill, North London. The idea of the project is to use photography as a tool to communicate, to create and acquire technical and artistic skills From October 2014 till December, we have been working with Aaron, Archie, Eli, Jack, Julien, Kwei, Mite and Zach. We lent them cameras, including disposable ones they used during half-term, so they can learn how to use them and simply feel free to take pictures in their own environment. We lent them professional cameras so they can improve their skills by using the lens, zooming in and out, focussing, framing etc and also guided them choosing their subjects, according to their tastes and affinities. We then helped them edit and choose their favourite ones. The project was very well received. Some of the pupils particularly showed a lot of excitement and were running all around the school taking pictures! The staff involved was very patient and cooperative. The whole experience was very rich and inspiring for all of us. And the result - consisting in about 80 images - is amazing. It was put ut as an exhibition for one week at the school before the Christmas holidays and a book is to be released soon! I would be very interested in developing a similar project with another school or group of children/teenagers. Any ideas/suggestions are welcome! More about the project: http://www.ambitiousaboutautism.org.uk/lib/liDownload/866/TreeHouse_Newsletter_no_28_December%20_14.pdf?CFID=23714112&CFTOKEN=68564475

I love Blackpool...

Whitby's famous Gothic Weekend is one of the weirdest event in the UK. The bi-annual Whitby Gothic Weekend, which takes place twice a year the last weekends of April and October, began in 1994 and has grown into one of the most popular Gothic events in the world, attracting all generations from across the UK and around the world. It encompasses music, trade venues and other fringe events which are spread through several venues across the lovely fishing town of Whitby in North Yorkshire.