I am neither an economist nor a photographer of monuments, and I am not much of a journalist either. What I am trying to do more than anything else is to observe life.

As time passes by and you look at portraits, the people come back to you like a silent echo. A photograph is a vestige of a face, a face in transit. Photography has something to do with death. It's a trace.

Photography appears to be an easy activity; in fact it is a varied and ambiguous process in which the only common denominator among its practitioners is in the instrument.

A photograph is neither taken or seized by force. It offers itself up. It is the photo that takes you. One must not take photos.

The most difficult thing for me is a portrait. You have to try and put your camera between the skin of a person and his shirt.

Some photographs are like a Chekhov short story or a Maupassant story. They're quick things and there's a whole world in them. But one is unconscious of it while shooting.

Photography is an immediate reaction, drawing is a meditation.