Highlights
- 2022: I fell in love with photography and bought my first camera (a Ricoh GR III)
- 2023: Launched my website and started blogging
- 2023: Registered as an artist photographer in France under the artist-author status
- 2024: Received a grant from the Paris City Hall to get my first interchangeable lens camera
- 2024: I published my first book, The real Paris: Diary N°1
Who am I?
MESAGI (pronounced ME-SA-JI) is the combination of my first and last name. I’m an introverted but sensitive and emotionally driven guy. Other than going out with my camera, I love spinning a CD to dream with music, diving into a good movie to feel different emotions, pouring a libation and lighting a cigar to burn my stress.
Millésime 1984, I’ve been a Parisian for decades. I’ve tried many things in my life—from being a trader to leading a team in renovation works—without finding success or satisfaction. I’m a dreamer, not a realist. This may explain why I jumped into photography without hesitation although it is well-known that artists are starving…
How I met photography
Summer of ’22. I’m in my late 30s, broke and lost after years of failures and depression. I’ve been trying to get a part-time job for months. In vain. You can imagine how getting rejected for crappy part-time jobs—like pedestrian crossing supervisor and grocery bags carrier—really hurt me.
I already had a foot in the world of art as an NFTs creator. Curiosity or desire (or both), pushed me to get drawing and photography books. This is how I saw for the first time a shot from street photography legend Daido Moriyama. It was an emotional shock, I’ve never felt so strongly about a photograph! The art of Daido Moriyama made me fall in love with black-and-white photography!
I bought a Ricoh GR III and more books and I trained myself to street photography in Paris. And there was no doubt in my mind: I had found my calling! Finally, I had something to hang on to in this stupid world. Something that brings me peace of mind, hope and a feeling of self-accomplishment.
How I create my photographs
I have an aspiration and I follow my own principles to create my photographs. The first one is to dive into the non-thinking mental state. The second one is to only create in the moment and in the place without any edits afterward. The third one is to reject any aesthetic and ideological constraints that don’t come from my own desires. The fourth one is to focus on forms first, not on the functions of things. You can learn more about my personal vision for my photography here.
Influences
My main influence is Daido Moriyama, he’s the one who made me fall in love with photography. I’m particularly a fan of his compilation book Record published in France. Black-and-white movies always made a big impression on me. To cite a few: In The Soup (1992) by Alexandre Rockwell, Le Feu Follet (1963) by Louis Malle, The Stranger (1946) by Orson Welles, Following (1998) by Christopher Nolan…
Music is also an important part of my life and has the power to catalyze or alter my mood. I listen to all kinds of music throughout the day (and evening): 90’s American and Japanese rap (2Pac, King Giddra), jazz (Dexter Gordon, Miles Davis), bossa nova (Alaide Costa, Stan Getz), French variety (Gainsbourg), shoegaze (Slowdive, Lush), electronic (Autechre, Klaus Schulze), 80’s Japanese pop (Rebecca, Momoko Kikuchi), classical music (Rachmaninoff’s 2nd symphony), Opera (Puccini, Strauss’s Elektra), salsa (Héctor Lavoe), etc..