He is not a photographer but, as he is pleased to say, he goes in for photography. Because he combines the technique of the professional with the original joy of the dilettante (in the proper meaning of the Italian word, present participle of "dilletaro" - delight - , hence "the one who practise an art for love"). For the pleasure of the photographic art or rather of the "photografrica" art.

Because Alain PARIS unceasingly puts this continent in images. For nearly fifteen years now, the major part of his productions has been devoted to Senegal. "Bush studio", "Seetsi", "Black Mirages" are various facets of the same passion for a world that fascinates and moves him.

After a stay in Africa, Alain PARIS might return with only one or two "rolls". From his many travels in the "black" continent, he has brought only a few pictures of the landscape ("ten, at the very most"), of traditional feasts or other such "exotic" snapshots. Because he needs Africa, it's often only a scenery for his photos.

Since 1989, and without interrupting his trips, Alain PARIS has lived shut in a studio to "shoot" his Africa. Here and there. With "Montreuil on the stage" (associated with another photographer), he has realized a surprising "trombinoscope" of the African population of Montreuil.
Bush studio, series realized with a medium-format camera in a daylight studio, shows his attachment to the small village of Kafountine (Casamance). It's there that he has created the first "Bush photography" school in 1989.

His Africa is not the "phantom Africa". It is neither the Africa of the ethnologists, the poets or the journalists. It is neither modern nor ancestral, neither poor nor corrupted, neither glad nor sad. It is a woman, a mother or a lover, nude, strange and sensual. Alain PARIS gives us to see what Africa has probably the most beautiful and obvious to offer, that nobody else would be able to describe.
A belly: The fertile one of a mother or the stretched skin of a dancer? Hands: Of an Ashanti princess of Ghana, or those of a Diola farmer of Casamance?
A nape: The one of an amazon warrior of Congo or those of a Parisian top-model? Litheness of the bodies, openness of a look, purity of Africa to which these "Black Mirages" refer, his last realization.

Alain Paris is not only in love with Africa. Since he has invited Africa in his dark room, he is being told to be... his lover.

Régis MICHEL (journalist)

www.blackmirages.com