00:05Going to North Korea is complicated. When I had the chance to meet them, I made it clear from the
00:11beginning that I will not do architecture photography or to photograph empty places,
00:18and that I wanted to show, to give a representation of the North Koreans, knowing that the North
00:25Korean were totally invisible, because the regime over there don't talk much about them.
00:34And because honestly, also in Europe, but in the United States, in Asia, nobody really
00:42care about North Korean. How is it to be a North Korean? So that was really a question.
00:59For me, it was very interesting as a street photographer to take the technique from the
01:05studio in the street. And I tried at the beginning to come closer probably to the first influence I had,
01:16which is like the icon, religious icon. It's not for the religious part of it, but for the
01:24iconographic style. So the visual is really straightforward. There is no much artifice.
01:33I had this first reflection about three colors, the same frame, bringing the flash in the streets
01:42with the same type of light, to photograph people, whoever they are, at the same distance. And for me,
01:49it was interesting to play with this code, to try to build a humanist message.
02:04I had a long discussion to try to imagine or get the information of where I could go,
02:12what does exist in North Korea, because you don't go on Google and look like you have no information.
02:17So, and I knew the stretching point would be that we don't have any common reference
02:24in terms of history, sociology, you know, in any field. When you don't have any common reference,
02:31when you see the same thing, you don't analyze it or you don't perceive it in the same way.
02:37Even if we were next to each other, sometimes we don't feel it in the same way.
02:42They never saw exactly what I was doing. And the inverse, I never really understood what they saw
02:49in my pictures and why they, with the time, accept me to come back and continue to work.
02:56I just knew that it was a sign that they recognize themselves in a way. I recognize myself through them
03:08and I recognize me in them. So it's really, it's like a mirror. I'm just there to pass and to
03:17put people
03:17that will look the pictures in front of them, where you are face to face. And I guess you learn
03:25as much on yourself than on the one in front of you.
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