I discovered photography completely by chance. My wife is an architect; when we were young and living in Paris, she bought a camera to take pictures of buildings. For the first time, I looked through a lens - and photography immediately started to invade my life.

Photography is full of symbolism, it's a symbolic language. You have to be able to materialize all your thoughts in one single image.

I am a former economist. I never went to photography school to learn photography.

More than ever, I feel that the human race is one. There are differences of colour, language, culture and opportunities, but people's feelings and reactions are alike. People flee wars to escape death, they migrate to improve their fortunes, they build new lives in foreign lands, they adapt to extreme hardship….

When I was just starting out, I met Cartier-Bresson. He wasn't young in age but, in his mind, he was the youngest person I'd ever met. He told me it was necessary to trust my instincts, be inside my work, and set aside my ego. In the end, my photography turned out very different to his, but I believe we were coming from the same place.

There comes a moment when it is no longer you who takes the photograph, but receives the way to do it quite naturally and fully.

Of course, I won't be abandoning photography, because it is my life.