I’m a big fan of stand-up comedy, they take ordinary behaviour or observations and turn it into gold. That’s what I’m trying to do with photography. That’s why I picked that quote from Louis CK, “Everything is amazing and nobody is happy” when I was trying to find a cool title for my website. This sentence resonates well with my two series about tourists in Paris. I live in Paris, but I don’t notice the beautiful monuments anymore.
In my project Down The River, I captured the life on the Seine river by shooting tourist boats from the top, looking at tourists that are looking at Paris. I was first attracted by the colourful boats packed with tourists, then I realized I could find some extraordinary moments if I spent enough time waiting on the bridge for every boat to pass.
In my Follow the Guide projects, I wanted to see things from the tourists' point of view, capturing the unexpected props raised by their guides in front of the blurry monuments. I was amused by the weird objects used by every guide: car antenna, selfie stick, wooden stick, kid sabre, teddy bear, plastic flowers, etc.