RESEARCH
overview
How I think about photography, and why.
METHODS
For me, photography has never really been about capturing a moment. It's a way of thinking — of asking questions about truth, memory, identity, and how we represent each other.
Every photograph is a choice.
Someone decided what to include and what to leave out, how to frame it, what story to tell. I find that fascinating, and a little unsettling. My research explores that gap between what a photo seems to show and what's actually going on beneath the surface.
“I have developed a distinct working method, shaped by movement, intuition, and adaptation.
Philosophy, in this context, is not abstract but embodied; it unfolds in the rhythm of production, the urgency of decision-making, and the act of walking.”
As a French immigrant living and working in Tāmaki Makaurau / Auckland, I'm also shaped by being an outsider: someone who has to think carefully about my place in New Zealand's history and culture, and what it means to make images here.
HOW I WORK
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Photos as stories, not documents
I start from the idea that no photograph is purely objective.
Every image is shaped by who made it, when, and why.
Rather than pretending otherwise, I lean into this, using fiction and invention as honest tools for exploring deeper truths. Sometimes a fabricated image reveals something more real than a straightforward one.
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Breaking expectations on purpose
I often deliberately disrupt what a viewer might expect: unusual angles, unexpected compositions, images that don't quite make sense at first glance.
That moment of confusion is intentional. It's an invitation to look again, and to question assumptions about what you think you're seeing.
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Rules as creative fuel
Constraints spark creativity. I set myself deliberate limitations — technical restrictions, fixed materials, strict visual rules — and work within them. The boundaries force me to be inventive in ways I wouldn't be with total freedom. It's a method borrowed from experimental literature movements that use strict rules to produce surprising results.
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Playfulness and the absurd
Some of my work draws on a tradition of embracing the irrational and the paradoxical, treating absurdity not as a flaw but as a lens.
When logic and realism are suspended, images can carry meaning that straightforward photography can't reach. It's serious play.
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Making work with others, not for them
Collaboration is at the heart of what I do, and I mean genuine collaboration, where everyone involved has real input.
I also dig into archives: old photographs, family albums, historical records. The study of how images carry cultural meaning over time runs through all my projects. Every new work builds on something that came before.
AI USE DISCLOSURE
I write a lot. In my own journals, for the pleasure of writing, and as a way to reflect on my thoughts and creative process.
Artificial intelligence tools were employed solely for linguistic refinement purposes, specifically, to assist with grammar correction and to enhance clarity of expression in English, which is my third language.
The use of such tools was limited to improving communicative precision and does not extend to the generation, development, or substantiation of ideas, arguments, analyses, or any intellectual content presented herein.
All original thought, reasoning, and creative contributions remain entirely my own.
AI assistance served exclusively as a language support mechanism, consistent with the ethical use of technological aids in academic writing.