During my year in Afghanistan, I photographed more than just the people. There was too much on offer - every door and wall seemed to tell you something. They were living pieces of history that, combined with images of the extraordinary landscape or photos of the horrendous destruction, made for a more complete picture of this country. I called that portfolio, 'The Land of Blood and Dust'.
On an assignment in north east Brazil, spending days on end travelling along dirt track roads in a 4x4, I began to photograph anything and everything through the windows. It’s one of my favourite portfolios and has this almost polaroid effect from the tinted glass and rich colours as the world sped by.
In India I decided that the creative concept for my work would be 'companion pieces' - one portrait set along side a texture, some fabric that had been built in the past or pasted on to a wall which dynamically or tonally matched. As I walked the streets I would reference these portrait images in my mind and if I found some visual equivalent, I would photograph it. Every evening I would lay these images out in a book I was working on and by the end I had over 150 spreads - a portrait next to a door or some graffiti. And they worked beautifully together.
But on my return to Paris, it became apparent that whilst this might work in a book, it wouldn’t work online, and I would also have a book of over 300 pages - way too many. So I stripped everything back - a book of portraits, two separate portfolios on my website.
India is rich in so many ways, intoxicating at times, and these images here seem to reinforce that. I was happy to take them.
