Marta Bevacqua

I knew and followed Marta Bevacqua's work for several years already and admired her so much, to be honest she is in the top three of my favorite photographers all over the world. I also saw that she was living in Paris and that we were shooting sometimes the same actors/models and working for the same projects but the idea of contacting her and meeting her seemed to me surreal !
There are many people who act this way : they love someone's work but they never say anything to their favorite artists, never write comments to their publications, never even put "likes" because they feel irrelevant and don't want to "bother" and also they might think that the artist is "inaccessible" or even "hostile", they are silent fans. And I was one of them, too.
But something happened... I, myself, received nicest messages from people saying that they loved my work and it touched me deeply, so I decided it was my turn to write to artists I was inspired by.

I proposed Marta to meet and drink I cup of coffee. To my big surprise she said "yes" and we set a date.
It was a cold parisian morning about a year ago. I didn't had any expectations, I just wanted to meet her, to ask few questions about her art and her life.
We started to talk and found many things in common, being two foreigners and artists in Paris helps a lot of course, but not only this, the conversation was smooth and easy, we jumped from one topic to another, we had so many things to share. She had an important appointment that morning so we could only stay about an hour together. But we decided to meet again later.

I guess some kind of magic operated : more we saw each other more we were discovering the same kind of stories in our past, we could speak non stop for hours around cold beers. She introduced me to her amazing boyfriend with who I also immediately felt that warm impression of family, as if the three of us we knew each other since forever.
I can't even think of the fact that if I haven't wrote her many months ago we wouldn't be friends now.

Push ourselves from our confort zones is very important, meet the people we admire is a huge chance and luck. For me the relationships are everything, the meetings we make in life are crucial. Those to who we are connected by some kind of mysterious ropes are everywhere, you just have to find them. And if you feel you have some sort of special bond with someone don't be afraid to tell her/him, the result doesn't really mater ! If it's ment to be it will be, that's all I know. But if you don't give it a try you will never know...

Marta became even more of a huge source of inspiration to me because now I can see her human vulnerable side, and struggles that she is having sometimes don't stop her from moving forward, her talent and determination are contagious.
And of course, more over all, she is my close friend now and I can share everything with her without ever being judged or misunderstood, I've found a precious beautiful soul.

Those are pictures I took of her last Summer :

model : Marta Bevacqua

Anastassia

it's been already 13 years that we know each other. I perfectly remember the first day we've met when I arrived in the middle of a school year in her class. our teacher of german said to me : "you'll see there is another russian girl in our class, well she lived in Austria actually but she speaks russian. her name is Anastassia, she is gothic, and she is always late", those were the first words that I've heard about her.
I waited for her as for a savior from this horror (I always hated school and especially when I moved from Russia to France speaking no word of french, changing schools every few month). and then about 15-20 minutes late arrived that shy little girl with glasses and long dark hair all dressed up in black. I remember that we tried to speak in russian but it didn't worked, so we stick with french.
we were lost and unhappy teenagers feeling uncomfortable in our skin. but we've found each other. since this first day we became close friends and were inseparable. she introduced me to her boyfriend and her friends and I found myself a little family of weird guys all dressed up in black wearing dark make-up all over the eyes but I loved them more than anything.
we've spend crazy times together and I cherish all the memories I have of us being lost teenage weirdos. I think in some way we helped a lot one another, supporting and loving as we could. we laughed together very often, more then we cried anyway, I remember having stomach ache because of our laughters. we did a lot of "first things" together : first loves, first brake-ups, first confidences, first alcohol overdoses, first concerts, first work experiences, etc etc. we lived and worked in French Alps, two years in a row during the summer, in the hotel, which was a hard but very cool experience. I did my first pictures ever, essentially of her of course, in that little house where we were living together with another cook who was working with us. and actually she was the first one saying that I have something special in my pictures. there were a lot of funny moments we lived in those mountains, being young, wild and crazy. the village was tiny and people were looking at as as if we were aliens and at work noone liked us thinking that we were too weird, but we didn't really care that much... it changed later when we started to hang out all together. I know that we've shocked the habitants of that place more than once ! I remember us dancing and singing under the pouring rain almost naked in the middle of the road...
things weren't always perfect, and somehow we lost a track of each other for a while, she took one road, me another, I moved to Paris she stayed in Nice. we saw each other occasionally when I was coming back for the holidays in Nice, but things weren't the same. I guess we needed this time apart to evolve and understand things on our own. and then about 2 years ago we found each other again, transformed. and now there is us as before, as An(n)a but more grown-ups, and I can feel our unique bond even when we are apart. she is a role model for me and I'm so proud being her friend. she is the kind of person who wants to make this world a better place by helping people. here comes her web-site : www.nastyaperfilova.com
this is my first real shooting of her since years...

Corsica : part II

our few days and nights with Maëlle in Calvi...

all the pictures are taken by Maëlle Venin and me