They Call Us Ragpickers
Carre de Biffin, 2024
Carre de Biffin, 2024
I would walk below the Porte Montmartre bridge daily, sometimes biking my way into Paris. With no prior knowledge of Paris besides the Eiffel Tower, cool accents and an opportunity, I was shook by the relatability. It was oddly familiar but out of place sight. Carré de Biffin became a spot I frequented, to understand and. To fit in. No genuine experience but just a camera, I raised the lens on them a few too many times before a man who’s name I couldn’t make out because my French was terrible asked me to photo him. To make a photo. That’s when my photos started to change, obscurity became less about voyeurism and more about security. Opacity and safety. And what became clear was consent, the want to be seen, and not fully, but when desired. Choice of what can be taken and what stays hidden only to be known within and pondered upon from outside. These are the selects that tell of those brief moments I had with this community, and within this community. The times survival was a smile and times survival was threatened. Times I was allowed. Times I might not have been.
These are entrepreneurs, survivalists, fathers, brothers, mothers, sisters, sons and daughters. Humans.
They call them Ragpickers.