I had an assignment in India, a story about Belgian crystal chandeliers sold to India’s maharajahs and nizams (very wealthy people), shot for the Belgian edition of National Geographic. During that stay, I began a project on Kushti, a form of wrestling. It’s much more than a casual sporting event. Kushti wrestlers live and train from a young age at an akhara, a wrestling school, that requires a grueling regimen and the guidance of a guru. I really wanted to photograph it. “I am interested in traditions and special events all over the world,”.

I visited each of the six akharas of Varanasi, scouting for “visual potential.” Then I traveled to Kolhapur to do the same. “Some akhara are good for action pictures, as they receive light from many windows, and some have very small windows and almost no light which is better for intimate shots,”. “Every day for two weeks I went from one place to the other, selecting places according to the light and the training schedule of the wrestlers.”

The language barrier was a struggle at first. So I returned with an Indian friend, and it opened up the door to interviews and meaningful interactions. Still, it took time for the wrestlers to get used to my presence. “I remember the first day, around 20 wrestlers were looking at me, scrutinizing all my gestures. A few days later they were no longer paying attention to me and I could really start to work. Every day I would send them pictures by email so they would understand what I was doing. They all have phones and love to take pictures of each other. At first my pictures were a little bit different from what they expected!”

As I spent more time in each akhara, I began to fine-tune my approach to the series. In the beginning I thought it was all about displaying force, but I discovered that the most important value is respect, so I edited my pictures to show that. I was also impressed by the contrast of modern Indian lifestyle versus their lifestyle, the traditions of kushti haven’t changed during its 150 years of practice.

As a photographer, I like to tell stories in a personal visual way. In Belgium, we have a background of surrealist artists (Magritte, Delvaux) plus the strong influence of the French surrealist painters. They definitely shaped the way I see things. My work is a mixture of photojournalism and documentary photography, and I am most interested in the in-depth reporting of stories relating to people and their environment. Various cultures, modes of living, rituals, and customs fascinate me.

I am always looking for pictures that convey emotions. At least one or two in a series of 10 images. It is a key element to make a good story.

I love a quote from Picasso where somebody asked him how long it took to make a particular painting and he said, 60 years. He was 60 at the time. Everything is in that answer. Transposed to photography, it is the way you take pictures, how you edit, the way you post produce. Your photographs are what you are, you cannot escape that. And I am always attracted to stories with a potential of emotional photo shots.

I like Koudelka for the poetry in his pictures, Alex Webb for his personal use of color, Raghu Rai an Indian photographer.

I like photographers in many different fields as long as they show the world through their personal eyes, with strong personalities.

I like when you feel the photographer behind the picture, not only the subject.

I forgot to mention Eugene Smith who had the most influence on my editing process; I mean in front of the computer, putting the pictures in the right order to tell the story. I love his Spanish Village series, a masterpiece.

A few moments ;

-Arriving in Afghanistan in 1974. I was still studying photography at a photo school (Saint-Luc) in Liège, Belgium. Coming from the Iranian border, I arrived in Afghanistan late in the afternoon. The dusty main street of Herat (western Afghanistan) was backlit by the sun. Seeing turbaned men, horse carts, veiled women; it was visually magical, like entering another dimension. I had not often felt such a dramatic change of scenery. It was a trip to the past, almost the Middle Ages. I returned several times. In 1978 (one year before the Russian invasion in 1979) and then the war prevented me from going back there for 30 years. In 2015, I returned to Afghanistan for a few days through Tajikistan. Nothing has changed. People are always so welcoming. It is a country frozen in time.

-Covering the 5 weeks Football World Cup (my second World Cup after Spain in 82) in 1986 in Mexico with Argentina and Maradona winning the title was an amazing experience

-Shooting the series Living for Death in Sulawesi, Indonesia, where people are cleaning the corpses of the deceased members of their family. They remove the coffins from their burial sites and open them. The mummies are cleaned, dried in the sun and given a change of clothes. Expressions of sadness are mixed with the overall happy atmosphere surrounding these moments of bonding with loved ones and honoring ancestors. Very unusual but very interesting.

You have to adapt your shooting to the situation and the light. When it is the right situation for color, the shooting will be easy; the same for black & white. But trying to shoot in B&W when it is a color situation or vice versa is difficult and not rewarding, and you will know it very quickly.

Sometimes a story is driven by the subject, sometimes by the light and the atmosphere. For instance, my Kushti series was closely related to light and color. Of course, the subject was there, but a few pictures became even better because of the interesting light. The light and the color enhanced the message I wanted to deliver.

When you are in the presence of great light and color, you usually know it, and you exploit it.

When I started the Kushti series I had a hard time because there was practically no light making the action shots almost impossible. So I decided to scout other locations (akharas or gyms) with more light and in those places I shot the action pictures. The more intimate shots were taken in low light settings.

But even with very low light it was obvious that it was a color story. I suppose it is very clear when you see all the pictures of the series. And in different cities the color of the earth in the pit is different ; yellow in Varanasi, red in Kolhapur.

Not really, I collect information about many potential stories in different countries and when I am in those countries I see what I can shoot.

There is no short advice for a transition into a lifestyle and career like mine (there are so many things to keep in mind), but it is definitely not easy. Unfortunately, I know a lot of very good photojournalists who find it extremely hard to survive and do their work. Assignments are drying up, and the money you get for your stories is shrinking. However, the Internet has brought new opportunities for photojournalists, including more contests with prize money awards, crowdfunding platforms for projects, grant funding opportunities, exhibitions, online sales of pictures, etc.

For advice about photography, look at as many pictures as possible from good photojournalists (in magazines, internet personal sites, photo agencies,...) to have a solid background; to understand how a story can be told; to see how they use color or black and white. By looking at pictures, you naturally develop your own preferences concerning the style of one or the other photographer. Then go into the field and practice.

I must say many young photographers don't know the classic photographers and their iconic pictures.

And I have to share an interesting experience I had when I was a sports photographer. I was invited for many years to participate in the making of the book «Roland Garros seen by the 20 best tennis photographers in the world» managed by Yann Arthus-Bertrand, the famous French filmmaker and photographer. In the confined area of Roland Garros, the idea was that every day 20 photographers had to bring back a few good pictures that were immediately displayed on a wall. Yann would select the best ones for the book. Some days you did not even make the wall selection!  But every day your colleagues made good pictures sometimes when you had not seen anything special. They might have found a new location, a new way of seeing things from a higher perspective or taken photos at night after the matches, etc.

What does it mean?

The pictures are there, they exist. You have to ask yourself, how can I make a good picture and where is the best place, then find the spot and wait for it to happen. So I know that the pictures exist in a sense, and if I don't get them myself another photographer in the same place will find a way to reveal them. There is always a good picture to be taken, you just have to work hard to get it. That idea never leaves me.

I have an exhibition of 70 pictures related to the story "Saving Orangutans" (shot in Indonesia about the threats they are facing) in La Gacilly (France) from June 1st till October 1st with other photographers, including Pascal Maître, Brent Stirton, Sebastian Salgado. Apparently, it is the largest outdoor photo exhibition in France.

Currently, I am answering this interview from Kathmandu in Nepal. The idea is to travel the world as long as I can ;-).