In Paris, some photographs begin long before you press the shutter.
An old PHOTO LAB, a graffiti-covered metal shutter, a street number, windows stacked one above another… All it needed was someone walking past with a camera. Naturally, I happened to be walking past with one.
This 19.5 × 24 cm book pouch was born from a request from my customers: something to protect a book inside a bag, without wrapping it in anything too dull.
I printed one of my Paris photographs onto it.
A photograph of a photo lab on a photographic pouch. Full circle.
There are shopfronts I walk past.
And then there are the ones that stop me.
PHOTO LAB.
Of course.
When you have been wandering around Paris with a camera for years, it is difficult to resist a sign like that. Especially when the place seems to have already lived several lives: a metal shutter, a few tags, slightly faded lettering and, above it all, Parisian windows quietly getting on with their day.
I like places that are not particularly trying to be beautiful.
They are simply there. They grow older. They change. Sometimes they disappear.
So I photograph them.
It is my way of keeping them around a little longer.
This image belongs to my Paris Promenades collection, born from my walks through the city. I do not set out looking for monuments. I prefer the small encounters: a sign, a façade, a bench, a shadow, a piece of pavement or something slightly odd that catches my eye.
This time, it was a photo lab.
For a photographer, pretending not to notice it was simply not an option.
This collection of pouches began with a very practical request from my customers: a pouch large enough to protect a book inside a bag.
Because a book at the bottom of a tote has quite an eventful life.
It mingles with keys. Rubs shoulders with glasses. Gets wedged against a water bottle. And sometimes ends up with a cover that tells you more about the contents of the bag than the story inside the book.
With its 19.5 × 24 cm format, this pouch can hold many novels, books and notebooks, keeping them safely apart from the little world travelling around them.
And since I do not particularly like telling objects they can only do one thing, it can also hold papers, a travel notebook, small accessories, cables, or all those things that usually disappear to the bottom of a bag.
A book today. Something else tomorrow. It can decide.
With this pouch, the story does not stop at the first photograph.
Closed, it shows the Photo Lab, its façade, sign and metal shutter.
Then lift the flap.
And the scenery changes.
Another Paris moment appears: Rue Saint-Nicolas, a blue shopfront and a little bench that seems to be waiting for someone. Two photographs, two moments from a walk through Paris, brought together on the same object.
That is precisely what I love about this format: the flap is not simply there to close the pouch. It lets the image play hide-and-seek.
Open it. Paris changes.
Close it. The Photo Lab returns.
This Maron Bouillie book pouch is made in Paris in small batches, using my original photographs.
A photograph protecting a book.
A photo lab photographed by a photographer.
It was really only a matter of time.
Slip your book inside.
Fold Paris over it.
The next picture may be waiting just around the corner.
