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….

Most of the information we now get is through television and is mutilated. Photography offers the opportunity to spend much more time on a topic. It's relatively cheaper medium, and can allow a photographer really to live in another place, show another reality, get closer to the truth.

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.

I have been photographing the portrait of an end of an era, as machines and computers replace human workers. What we have in these pictures is an archeology.

I have two children. I have a Down syndrome child whom I love very much, and my wife that I love.

As in any person's life, there have been difficult moments: I have a son with Down's syndrome; through my photography, I have witnessed all manner of human degradation. But there have also been very happy moments.

The language that photography has is a formal language. Any photographer is doing something formal. If it's formal, then it must be an aesthetic way to communicate.