With the Covid, time has stopped. The horizon so vast has become tenuous. Several billion people from different countries found themselves confined at the same time. Dependent on exit permits, passes to circulate, sesame that allowed you to point your nose outside. A short moment. And what frustration… no more reporting from the other side of the world. Everyday life has turned into a defined perimeter of 1 km around your home. For my part, as a journalist, I was lucky to have a kind of free pass… my precious press card, which allowed me to roam around on my scooter in the empty streets of Paris.
I then discovered another Paris. A city that had become silent, more beautiful, and in which nature was slowly beginning to take back its rights. A life in suspense, without cars or pollution, peaceful boulevards, an impression of being in the countryside hearing the chirping of birds again... Some suburban towns have even seen astonished deer pacing the asphalt.
Sometimes I came across someone in a rush, another photographer or a policeman. Sometimes a family, with their children playing for an hour in the sun before locking themselves up again.
Then came the masks. First the shortage of masks, causing arm wrestling between countries to the airport tarmacs. So, with frenzy, everyone started making them themselves, in fabric, in underpants on their heads, exchanging models and tutorials.
Then, there were more and more of them, obligatory accessories of our daily life that became symbols of the epidemic. More and more masks and gloves littered the floor. Left to themselves. So I started to immortalise them. To take graphic, even artistic photos.
Because these masks lost on the sidewalks tell us part of our story, this moment when all of humanity began to experience the same drama, at the same time.
