Circus - Butterfly 3

Analog photography on Kodak asa 400 film 24x36mm

I am always thinking about how I can I interpret the events in my life both great and small and absorb them into my work.

I create work inspired by daily life but which swings between the real world and my fantasy. Having been living in Paris since 2002, I was searching for a subject which suitably caught the spirit of the city during my time there. After much reflection, the theme which seemed most appropriate was that of the circus. In Paris there is the traditional circus and every variation thereon, right up to the new contemporary circus ‘cirque nouveau’ and every week one can see a different performance somewhere in the city.

Moments When Human Beings are Transformed Into Something Else 2003
The ephemeral and the fun and danger and solitude. These are the aspects of the circus which appeal to me and connect it to real life. I went to many different circuses to take pictures. I knew that I was not interested in taking documentary or reportage photographs of the real circus. My aim was in fact to capture the moment when reality and fantasy come together and human beings metamorphose through photography into something else. When this happened, it was often seemingly by accident, so I could never feel satisfied that the result was entirely my own creation. The more I went to the circus, the more I began to question whether the photographic approach could ever fully express my personal creative vision.