Event: Xposure International Photography Festival 2019
Location: Sharjah, UAE
Exhibition: Glow
Talk: The Importance of Personal Projects

In September 2019, I had the honour to be invited as a guest photographer and speaker to the International Photography Festival Xposure in Sharjah, UAE.

From day one, being part of a group, mostly composed of photographers that I call “Rockstars” made me feel so small and so lucky at the same time that I wanted to find a pause button to appreciate the moment. Yeah, I was that kid asking each of them to sign me an autograph… I wanted to listen to every single conversations, watch every single pictures, learn every single piece of advice they had to give.

Sharing the stage with so many worldwide talents gave me goosebumps, talking with them even more, having them watch my work made me feel a bit vulnerable to be honest. But the wonderful things about this group that I like to call “Rockstars” is the simplicity, the passion and more importantly the humility of each of them. Nobody was there to compete but to share and celebrate our passion for images.

I tried to listen to all the live talks and I’m still catching up on youtube on the ones I didn’t see yet. To be true some brought me to tears, some made me so mad, some made me doubt, some made me question myself and some made me smile, but each of them gave me so much admiration for the person behind the work.

I’m grateful I had the chance to be part of such an international group of people reunited with the same drive to tell stories.