In this day and age, no one - or almost no one - pays the least bit of attention to others. So, why in heaven's name would one pay any attention to a photographer and his images ?

Umberto Eco* wrote that prose is a lazy machine, which needs the complicity of a reader in order to function.
A photo is in a worse condition. For there must be at least three in order for it to function : a subject, a photograph
and a final observer who, acknowledging the complicity between the first two, invites himself to the table, in silence.
He remains a few moments, observes and finally gets up and disappears.

This is what makes a beautiful image.

A lingering gaze. That which we still call to this day a "photo" - in a somewhat thoughtless way - is the chance meeting,
the wonderment, the magic of the moment... these are the reasons why I became a photographer.

Human beings fascinate me as much today as ever before and I'm not about to change. I know of nothing
more stimulating than to be able to capture an emotion, a gesture, a look or an attitude which, seized at the
just the right moment, creates a concentration of humanity and sums up who the subject is.

So, here is my book. Please, have a seat at my table; stay as long as you'ld like and enjoy yourself as much
as I have in creating it.

Bernard Vidal

* in "Kant et l'Ornithorynque".