my time in France
Although my first time in Europe came years before I visited France, I never truly believed I would end up there. I didn't speak the language and had no real connection to the country. But in 2025, my good friend Juancy was accepted into a three-month residency at Cité Internationale des Arts for his filmmaking. He was given a studio apartment alongside dozens of artists from around the world. After talking with him about it, I decided to make the trip and spent a few weeks there with him.
It wasn't a trip built around checking landmarks off a list or trying to see Paris as quickly as possible. Instead, I wanted to experience the city at a slower pace—to observe how people lived, how light moved through the streets, and how everyday moments unfolded. Staying in an environment filled with artists from different countries also reminded me that creativity isn't tied to one place or one language. Everyone was searching for a different way to express the world around them.
One thing I noticed almost immediately was how comfortable I became with not having a plan. Back home, I'm usually trying to get somewhere. In Paris, I found myself walking simply because I was curious about what was around the next corner. Some days I'd come home with a roll full of photographs. Other days I'd walk for hours and make one frame—or none at all. Surprisingly, those were often the days I enjoyed the most.
I wasn't chasing the Paris that everyone already knows. I wasn't trying to recreate postcards or check famous locations off a list. I became more interested in the streets between the destinations—the places people hurried past every day without a second thought. I'd stop because of the way light wrapped around a building, a reflection in a café window, or the feeling that something was about to happen if I just waited a little longer.
Being somewhere I couldn't fully understand forced me to pay attention differently. I couldn't rely on conversations or signs, so I started noticing expressions, body language, the rhythm of the city, and the spaces between people. In a strange way, not speaking the language made me observe more than I normally would have. It reminded me that you don't always need to understand a place to feel connected to it.
Looking back, that's what these photographs really represent. They're not meant to show you Paris—they show you how I experienced it. Every frame carries a memory that doesn't exist within the image itself: where I had just come from, why I stopped walking, what caught my attention, or why I decided to wait a few extra seconds before pressing the shutter.
That's really why I wanted to start writing these stories.
For years these photographs have existed on their own, and I've realized they never really had a voice. Most people only get to see the final image, but not everything that happened before it. The conversations, the long walks, the missed photographs, the unexpected moments, or the thoughts that made me stop in the first place.
This is my way of giving those moments a voice. Not to explain the photographs, but to preserve the stories that quietly exist behind them—because every photograph begins long before the shutter is released.
