Frame 01 · Editorial

Passersby

Slow shutters on the boulevards. The crowd turns to weather, and the one person standing still becomes the subject.

Client: Kader Magazine
Role: Photography
Location: Paris, France
Year: 2026

Four afternoons on the Rive Droite for the crowd issue of Kader Magazine. The brief was one sentence long: find the people who stop.

A young man in a blue jacket stands perfectly still on a zebra crossing while the crowd streams past him in a warm blur. — Frame 01 · 35mm · f/8 · 1/8 s · ISO 100
Crossing, Rue de Rivoli. 1/8 second.

A young man in a red sweater stands against a red brick wall, two passersby blurred in the foreground. — Frame 02 · 50mm · f/2 · 1/30 s · ISO 200
Red sweater, Le Marais.

Seen from above, a young woman in a plaid coat holds a bouquet of red roses and looks up while people hurry past. — Frame 03 · 28mm · f/4 · 1/60 s · ISO 400
Roses, from the métro stairs.

A woman in a camel trench coat hurries along a Paris street, the buildings behind her streaked by motion. — Frame 04 · 35mm · f/11 · 1/15 s · ISO 100
Trench coat, 6 p.m.

The story

Every frame in this story was made at a shutter speed too slow for the street. At one eighth of a second the crowd stops being people and becomes a current, and anyone who stands still in it suddenly looks like they are waiting for something important.

I worked from crossings, café doorways and the top of the métro stairs, with a 35mm lens and a lot of patience. Most of the subjects were cast the same morning. A few were simply standing there when the light was right, and said yes.

The magazine ran eleven pages. These are the four I would print.

Editorial

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Afterimage

The shutter left open a moment too long, so every look leaves a trace of colour behind it.

A man in a long dark coat walks across a glowing orange and red backdrop, his body trailing a motion blur.