Nowhere does love fall more into place than against the backdrop of Paris

Call it Anna Breit (29)’s sweet revenge on the pandemic: all the photos she took of young couples in Paris in the first half of July were taken in public space. Parks, the square in front of Center Pompidou, the stairs in front of the Sacre Coeur, the quays of the Canal Saint-Denis, in the metro: in front of Breits camera, the twenty-somethings recaptured all those areas that were so often untouched during the strict lockdown. Also the hotspots where young people like to hang out and usually meet each other. Breit is from Vienna, but the Austrian capital started to feel oppressive, partly because she ‘always met the same people’ during her work in the fashion world. Paris, the capital of fashion, is her new field of activity. The city offers new horizons and skylines, where Breit can spread her wings. For example, to give substance to her own projects, which are located at the intersection of personal and documentary photography. She is always looking for contact with the young people of Paris. See her series about teenagers in their room – a project that bears a resemblance to Adriaan van der Ploeg’s famous series ‘This is me‘, each time with a child in his bedroom, in the Volkskrant-quire v.

But for this summer magazine, she focused on lovers in Paris, in the sultry outdoors. A friend, a casting director, made the first contacts with the couples, of which Breit selected a few. She met one or two a day. ‘It’s important to me that people can trust me. I give them all the space. You decide how far you want to go in front of the camera, whether you want to kiss or not, I said. Some are outgoing, like the two guys on the subway, others are shy. I can also handle that photographically.’

This is how the series of young people, especially students, was born, who seem to completely lose themselves in each other. Who thus share with us the longing of a glance, the poetry of the loving gesture, the thrill of a caress and the thrill of the kiss. There are more places where young people so openly profess their affection for each other. But nowhere does love fall more into place than against the backdrop of Paris.