Staying to Look

Blink of a Moment

Street photography isn’t just about capturing streets or the people who pass by. It’s about feeling the rhythm of each moment, absorbing every scene, walking, listening to the pulse of the city. It’s about humanity, but also its absence, what we leave behind. Street photography is about existing within a familiar universe that becomes invisible once routine replaces wonder.

I was born in Geneva, a city I would later explore endlessly with my camera, learning to see it anew. From an early age, I was drawn not only to photography but also to music. I realized over time that both share something essential: a rhythm, a cadence, a harmony between elements that, when aligned, create something greater than the sum of their parts. In music, notes and silence converse. In street photography, light, shadow, and movement do the same. Both require listening, patience, and sensitivity to fleeting moments that might otherwise pass unnoticed. I started taking photos very young, when my grandfather would take me along with his film camera to photograph his village. I must have been around six when he showed me how to press the shutter, adjust the settings, and send rolls of film to be developed. From that moment, I spent most of my life photographing the ordinary moments around me. A little later, he gave me a small Minolta point-and-shoot that I took with me on every holiday we shared. He continued teaching me how to capture the fleeting moments of life during our travels. For my twelfth birthday, I received my first digital camera. Its simplicity and the freedom to take thousands of pictures at minimal cost inevitably led me to photograph everything: friends, daily adventures, school, parties, and fragments of everyday life.

It wasn’t until 2020, during the lockdown, that I discovered photography on a deeper level. I found the work of Mary Ellen Mark and Garry Winogrand, and it was a revelation. Photography, which I had always thought of as a way to preserve personal memories, suddenly became a medium not only to document my own life, but also the life unfolding around me. I bought an old Nikon F3 and went into the city to photograph anything that caught my eye. The city I had walked through since childhood, once stripped of magic, revealed itself in a new light. Buildings I had passed hundreds of times suddenly seemed alive; passersby, their previously insignificant gestures, became actors in a silent play, and I was both witness and director. That’s when my project Blink of a Moment was born. After gathering hundreds of images that I had carefully developed myself, I realized there was a thread connecting them all. They weren’t just photographs; they were traces of fleeting moments that had caught my eye at a precise instant and rekindled the sense of wonder I thought I had lost. I began photographing almost compulsively, every time my schedule allowed.

By 2024, the price of film had become exorbitant, and developing it took up time I could no longer spare, time I wanted to spend creating. So I decided to switch to digital. I bought an old Fuji X-E1 and a 25mm TTArtisan lens for €60, and continued photographing nearly every day, with even more freedom and passion. As the months went by, I understood that what I was creating was more than just a series of images. It was a way of reconnecting with the world, of learning to see again. That’s how Blink of a Moment truly began. The project had its origins in 2022, but it was only in 2024, when I switched to digital, that I began working on it seriously, developing it as a coherent and intentional body of work. Not as an idea, but as a feeling. A heartbeat. An instinct that pushed me to press the shutter when something, no matter how small or ordinary, suddenly felt meaningful.

Started in Geneva, Blink of a Moment is my attempt to capture the fragile beauty of everyday life. It isn’t about spectacular scenes or grand events. It’s about the things we no longer notice. With a camera in hand, I try to catch these fragments before they disappear, just long enough to reveal that the ordinary can be extraordinary, if only for a second. My approach is instinctive, almost participatory. I don’t stay at a distance. I walk into the moment. I stand close, sometimes just a few centimeters away, where I can feel someone’s presence. Sometimes I interact, sometimes I remain silent. But in that fragile space, just before someone becomes aware of the camera, something true emerges: an expression, a tension, an emotion that can’t be staged. It’s brief, it’s raw, and that’s exactly what I’m looking for. But Blink of a Moment is not only about people. It’s also about their absence. About what they leave behind: shadows, reflections, traces of movement. A forgotten bag on a bench, a silhouette in a shop window, a hand brushing against a wall. These small details tell stories too. Sometimes, it’s a completely unexpected situation, slightly out of place, that stops me in my tracks and reminds me how strange and beautiful everyday life can be. I don’t try to judge or explain what I photograph. I simply try to exist within that tiny space between the seen and the unseen, between awareness and chance. The power of a photograph, to me, lies in that fragile balance, when an instant is about to vanish and yet remains suspended.

I chose black and white initially for practical reasons: it allowed me to develop my film at home, quickly and easily. But the more I photographed in black and white, the more I realized it was not just a technical choice, it was a way to include the viewer in the scene. Unlike color, which instinctively directs the eye to certain areas, black and white gives no indication of where to look. It does not rely on the visual shortcuts that color often imposes. Instead, it asks the viewer to enter the frame, to search, to explore, and to discover the details for themselves. In this way, they become part of the act of creation, just as I immerse myself in the scene to capture its essence.

Black and white is often described as timeless, and many people assume it evokes nostalgia or obscures the era in which a photograph was taken. I dislike that interpretation. For me, the absence of color is not about making images “look old” or “classic.” It is about forcing a deeper reading. It removes the comfort of the familiar, of the already-seen, and demands attention to what truly matters. It is in this stripped-down world that the invisible becomes visible, where fleeting emotions reveal themselves. Through black and white, the viewer is compelled to slow down, to look carefully, and to inhabit the photograph with the same curiosity and presence that I bring to the streets. Just as I integrate myself into everyday life to witness its hidden rhythms, the monochrome frame invites others to step inside and experience the moment with an intimacy that color could never fully allow.

In contrast to my deliberate choice to photograph in black and white, the equipment I use is of very little importance to me. I have never sought the most sophisticated, the latest, the highest-megapixel camera, or the sharpest lens. Everything I use serves a single purpose: to respond to the demands of the street and the situation in front of me. My only real requirement is the 35mm perspective (full-frame equivalent) and a camera that is robust, compact, and reliable. That’s why I started with a Fuji X-E1 paired with a TTArtisan 25mm lens, a very inexpensive lens that suited my needs perfectly.

When I found reading the viewfinder difficult in certain situations, I switched to a Fuji X-Pro1, which has the same excellent 16-megapixel sensor as the X-E1 but offers a hybrid viewfinder more suited to street photography. I eventually replaced the 25mm TTArtisan with a Tokina 23mm lens featuring autofocus and a larger aperture, which gives me more flexibility in specific situations. But generally, I work with hyperfocal focus: setting my aperture between f/8 and f/11, and my focus distance around 2 meters. This approach allows me to capture the fleeting rhythm of the street without being slowed by technical constraints.

In the end, Blink of a Moment is more than a photographic project, it’s a way of being present in the world. Street photography has taught me to slow down. It has reminded me that beauty doesn’t need to be sought in the exceptional, but found in what is already there. Each photograph is a fragment of time, suspended just long enough to remind us that every instant carries meaning, if only we take the time to see it.