Resisting, at ground level

Between December 2017 and July 2018, I photographed people living on the streets of central Paris — André, Darius, Kaï, Néjah, Alain, Andréa, Slaver, Patrick and others. I call them Résistants. Not victims, not "the homeless". People who hold their ground, at ground level, in a city that walks past them without looking. They are visible to those who know where to look. I am autistic. My emotions work like an undeveloped negative: present, complete, unreadable to me. When I pass someone who carries on the outside what I carry on the inside, something recognizes itself, and I photograph. Then I work the image in black and white, removing every distraction, until I can say: that's it, exactly that. Only at that moment do I know what I was carrying. These photographs were taken up close, at their level, on the ground. When we talked, the caption carries the person's first name. When we did not, the caption only records the place.