In the late 1980’s I arrived in Paris, 34 years old, with 15 years of New York City in my baggage, two cats and a French husband by my side. I’d sold my darkroom equipment and stored my artwork and photos in my parents’ attic, and was allowing myself one year to decide how to remake my life.

Expectation exists even in unplanned lives, and rarely unrolls as envisioned. After that first year we were faced with returning to New York or finding the means to remain in Paris. Determined to stay, we created and nurtured a retail business for over 25 years. As online sales in our sector caught on, I bought a digital SLR and taught myself the new technology in order to photograph the products we would showcase online.

Perhaps that camera was the catalyst? Peering through a viewfinder again, considering light and depth of field, composition: all of those visual rumbles terminating in a satisfying shutter-click. Street Photography had been my passion as an art student in New York, and as I wandered now-familiar Parisian streets camera in hand, the love flowed back triple strength .

We sold our business in 2017. A second-hand digital Leica M and my father’s resuscitated Rollei were my companions for the next few years as I experimented and learned, solidifying aesthetics and redefining voice. I love the gestures of traditional film photography: sliding subjects into focus, the click and subsequent cocking of the shutter, the anticipation of the image. The technical possibilities offered by digital allow wider visual creativity; both have their place in my practice. Street Photography documents our moment in time and our interaction with it; it is and always has been candid. It’s a spirit, not a style.