About a year after I became a photographer, I photographed my wife, Clair, in a circus mirror. In it, she resembled an ex-East German swimmer, stuffed with steroids.  I think it was my first successful photograph and it was published often at the time. 

I began photography with images deformed through a mirror. At that time, I had never heard of Andre Kertesz. Months later, several well-intentioned people told me 'deforming mirrors has already been done, you should find something else...' I didn't listen to them. For me, the mirrors were just an accessory, like a fish-eye lens or a filter. Looking back, and now that I know Kertesz' work better, I don't regret a thing. My images have absolutely nothing in common with his.

In fact, what I think saved me at the beginning is that I had no picture culture; and therefore had NO references. It gave me the audacity to do anything; without fearing to tread where others had been before me. I don't want to imply that I was absolutely uneducated; my knowledge was more literary. At school, in view of my obvious incapacity to understand mathematics, my professor gave me the rare and envied prerogative of reading during his classes.

Now of course, I am much more interested in photography and my tastes extend towards artists such as Joel-Peter Witkin, Sally Mann, Tono Stano and Phillippe Pache.