I graduated from Paris Medical School in 1975. By that time I had already been bitten by the bugs of adventure and of public health. I left France in 1972 and never worked again in my own country. For the past 30 years I have been practicing international public health and epidemiology in the USA, Africa, South and South-East Asia as well as in Central Asia. I have been privileged to be part of the smallpox and of the poliomyelitis eradication programs. It is my curiosity and deep interest in other people’s cultures that keep me going.

I started photography at the age of sixteen thanks to the generosity of my (slightly) younger brother who owned a Foca camera and let me use it. My next camera was an Asahi Pentax Spotmatic that I traded in 1971 for a Nikkormat and a 105mm. In 1972 before living for Bangladesh I bought a Nikon F. I have stayed with Nikon since although I use range finders as well.

I am a self-taught amateur photographer. Like the young poet I had to answer myself the questions R.M. Rilke was asking him: “Go into yourself. Find out the reasons that command you to write; see whether it has spread its roots into the very depths of your heart; confess to yourself whether you would have to die if you were forbidden to write. This most of all: ask yourself in the most silent hour of the night: must I write?” I believe that I am a photographer of people and, within this category, a photographer of “images à la sauvette”. In French “images à la sauvette” means “stolen pictures” or “snap shots” not “the decisive moment”. But critics of my photo exhibitions have often commented on the apparent complicity between the subjects and me so perhaps I “borrow” pictures more than I steal them. I am also fascinated by animal wildlife. Whether I am good or not at photography is another question and my own answers as well as the constructive comments of top photographers have nudged me into trying better and harder.