Memory of the Rencontres d’Arles (International Photography Festival)

The Rencontres d’Arles made me a photographer. I must have been 18 when I started to discover photography by visiting the exhibitions of the photography giants at the end of the 20th century. I was fascinated by their images. their names were Robert Doisneau, Ansel Adams, Willy Ronis, Jean Dieuzaide, Jacques Henri Lartigue and of course Lucien Clergue who offered me a position as his assistant. Among them, some seemed to be also magicians: Henri Cartier Bresson, Franco Fontana, Sebastiao Salgado … What was extraordinary is that each year, at the beginning of July, these masters whom I admired met in Arles for the International Meetings of Photography and I met them in the streets of my city. Sometimes I dared to approach a few. Here are some pictures from this time, and also some more recent ones.