My Travels, Inner and Around the World

"Where were you?", "Where are you off to next?" These are the first questions that people I meet up with after a long time ask me with star-filled eyes.

I must say that already as a young child I had been to the Caribbean several times. I was in Thailand at the age of 16 where I studied the magnificently painted frescoes of the founding epic of Mahabharata within the Wat Phra Kaew compound in Bangkok. I recreated a stupa by juxtaposing dozens of photographs

Since then, travel and photography have become possible for many and that which was original back then is less so today.

I was about to become a tenured Plastic Arts teacher after having done numerous replacements when, at the age of 23, I decided to take that famous back pack and go off to discover India.

Not even a badly sprained ankle, 15 days before I was to leave, could change my determination to go even though I was totally conscious of the irreversible consequences of my decision. It also meant my arriving in a wheel chair in Katmandou, the roof of the world and city of eternal snow and dreams. I made my way over stony Himalayan paths on crutches towards my next destination: India! Just the mentioning of India would lead me way off subject from this text but there is one significant event that I must evoke: the making of a vow to make a dream come true: that of becoming a professional photographer. I made this vow in front of the Gange River during the world's biggest religious pilgrimage, the Khumba Melha at Haridwar, which had attracted 10 million other souls that year. Did they make pious vows to become professional photographers? Nothing is less certain because competition has seriously increased since then. Needless to say, I was bitten by the travel bug and it lasted for three consecutive years, alone.

The feeling of being on the road was reinforced more than ever by a two-month long stopover in France. I had chosen to live on a Chinese junk ship which had gone around the world four times and which had lifted its anchor at the foot of the Ministry of Finance. A wind vane imitating the sound of seagulls at the top of it increased the surreal aspect of this period of my life which for me was like the rising of the sun.

With a ticket that was valid for one year, from July 26, 1998 to July 26, 1999, in my hand, I took off for the American continent. There was a remarkable 3-day bus trip across Canada from Montréal to Vancouver which covered 6,000km. It put me in the thick of things straight away and unveiled all of the landscapes.

British Columbia was "a promised land" right from the beginning (and I have hung onto this combination of French and English ever since). This is where I found a copy of mythical Kerouac's "On the Road" for $1.00 at the second-hand store on Hornby Island.

It accompanied me down the west coast to Mexico and Guatemala and over to New Orleans on the way back up to New York on the other coast. A puppet show and a mermaid parade awaited me in Coney Island (which was a huge contrast with the millionaires living in Key Largo where I rested up?? ….!)Sandra, je ne comprends pas ce que tu veux dire ici non plus. Many people who are used to reading my " Travel Diary", "Fragments From Trips", "New York Stories" and "Quebec Chronicles" have suggested that I write about my adventures and I will one day soon. 

There is a time for everything, now it's for images and then I'll dig up those texts buried and waiting somewhere…

Back when film was still being used, I edited a list destined to iconographers who were working for newspapers. It was not so long ago that magazines were still producing many reports and not always relying on image banks selling out what were to become simple illustrations. This was 14 years ago; my slides were on hold at Figaro Magazine, Paris Match, VSD, Gala…I did not know anyone in Paris, was barely making a living, but I went around to the best, waiting sometimes too long in waiting rooms but always full of hope that one of the subjects that had so inspired me would one day appear in paper format. There were a few beautiful publications but the possibility of becoming a Special Reporter had already seriously faded.

One dream vanished, others appeared.