ROMAIN BEAUMONT PHOTOGRAPHIES

In my first professional life, I was a social worker. I have worked with various populations: first of all with babies (I am a qualified early childhood educator), with local youth (homework help, street educator) asylum seekers with whom I have worked. given literacy classes to adults with multiple disabilities during their vacations, to children placed outside their families and finally to adults with intellectual disabilities.

These experiences confirmed my immense interest, even admiration, for Man (meaning the human race) and his powers. In contact with all these women and men, I learned to question my representations and my values ​​to constantly re-examine my preconceptions.  This gymnastics taught me not to judge others. The sentence seems to come from a cloying LinkedIn post on kindness so I will try hard to support my point. I no longer feel “embarrassed” when speaking to a different person, and I have difficulty coping with mockery, denigration, exclusion or condescension. Condescension is the overly kind tone that a boss uses to address the employee doing the interview, calling them by their first name and tapping them on the shoulder.

Why do you think I'm saying all this?

To explain to you that the day I return to your factory, contact with the people I will meet there will be simple and clear. I say contact but it’s ultimately a contract, let me explain. The underlying question when I arrive with my camera is: why are you going to photograph me and for whom?

Of course we explain it’s for publicity…, we’re redoing a photo campaign, our photo library is aging….

The employee doesn't care at all about our image bank, she wants to know if it will be highlighted, if it risks being used, and if so how.  No need for a long speech to justify my presence and my honesty, I am capable of transmitting this certainty that I am here to value, I am so sure of it myself that I have no difficulty in making it known through my look, the tone of my voice and my handshake.

And this asset inherited from my job as a social worker, non-judgment, has a lot to do with it.