An open-air studio

We often look far away for what sits thirty minutes from home. Maastricht, from Liège, is barely a drive, and yet you change worlds: pale facades that bounce the light, narrow streets that channel it, clean lines that hold a frame on their own. That day we crossed the city the way you leaf through a magazine.

No production, no assistant, no tricks. A model, a camera, and an urban light that changes at every street corner. It is shorter than by the sea, cut off by the rooftops, and that is exactly what makes it interesting: it forces choices. You stop, you see where it falls, you place the silhouette in it, and you move on.

We were driving around with no route, looking for beautiful settings. She was the one who pointed at the house. I hit the brakes: in front of that place, it was obvious. The best images of this series come from there, from a finger pointed at a facade. That is urban editorial: a dialogue of three. The model, the city, the light. That time, the photographer only listened.

Working between Liège, Maastricht and Aachen is the privilege of this border region: three moods, three architectures, three lights, no logistics. The set is already there. You only have to step outside.

And then there is luck, which no plan can replace. That day a Japanese cherry tree stood in bloom, and a light breeze was undressing it. Petals in the air, on her shoulders, in her hair. Sometimes the elements assemble on their own: the tree, the wind, the light, her. People call it luck. I think it is poetry passing by, and you have to be there when it passes, heart or camera in hand.

Poetry passing by: I saw it once, in a street. One Sunday at noon, in Oslo, I leapt up and I ran. It was not yet about photography, and yet that may be the day I became a photographer. Between us, we say: light catcher. The camera only came after.