I enjoy being in a crowd. It is like swimming. Feeling the contact of water on my skin. Bathing in the throng. Prendre un bain de foule. At times immersed, at times submerged. Belonging to a crowd is forgetting oneself. Disappearing as an individual. Becoming anonymous. Looking at one’s neighbour, the Everyman, we can see ourselves. Forgetting social status and its implications. Re-becoming human, almost animal. Crowd is complex. It is a comprehensive, unique, indivisible whole; a mass. On the contrary, it is infinitely multiple as an addition of fractions. Fractions that look alike but that are each different in essence... In this apparent paradox lies the richness of the crowd. Every person composing it, every drop of water, has its own identity that we can only imagine.In this creation process, shooting is the decisive time. It is crucial. I fish or hunt moments. Moments that happen, intense but volatile. I need to be alert, in a good mood and have some luck. Interactions with passers-by may occur. Then, I re-create a reality. A reality that I distill, that I skim. A reality made communicable, translatable. A new reality. I play with colours to seek for harmony. I build a composition to seek for energy. I examine the crowd at the level of the group. Watching water as a whole, while staring at the drops that compose it.

Eric Leleu - March 2009