This photograph is inspired by Botticelli’s Venus, the perfect and idealized embodiment of the woman. This Venus with Pink Ribbons encourages us to break the taboo surrounding cancer screening, particularly for young women, and to confront the breast cancer subject. Whether clouds threaten or not, each woman owes it to herself to bring fully to life, without fear, the goddess sleeping within her.

With their strength, women can go everywhere and go through everything... In a dream, on Earth... The disease, everyday life, hope, healing.

A professional photographer, I mounted a photographic project to encourage breast cancer screening. Hence, since March 2013, I have been photographing professionals from the world of the image throughout France, women who are usually behind the camera. To dare to show, to come out of the shadows, and expose one’s chest to the light. In this photo, we are in the middle of Paris, a busy and sunny afternoon. People are out and about. This has no affect on the motivation of the photographer who poses: “No, don’t be afraid any longer of screening!” Two women suffering from breast cancer became involved in the project, and appear in some of the fifty photographs taken until now. A genuine momentum of solidarity has arisen and we’re all impatient to see each other again in October.

Painting, before photography, allowed us to see and to interpret the mores of societies of bygone eras. Depending on the period, some paintings shocked. Who, today, would be scandalized by the frontal gaze and the nudity of Victorine Meurent in the famous painting by Manet, The Luncheon on the Grass (1863)? Mores change, pound words against evil.
For this photograph, I followed this tradition and questioned my era. The nakedness of this woman’s head is beautiful. Is it a scandal? Should it be hidden? Beauty as reappropriation of a space of freedom so that women undergoing chemotherapy can make their own choices.
Having escaped a cancer, I experienced this enormous hope – without emotional reference – that life will win. But to win, it’s the love of others that feeds this necessary gigantic force and which also allows us to stay alive rather than to leave in peace.

As a woman, I’m exposed to breast cancer. The risk is genuine and affects many women. Let’s not let this disease become a weakness for our bodies and painful for our loved ones. Right now, I’m not concerned by breast cancer, but when the time comes, I will do cancer screening. A simple gesture, for a sweet life!

Diane’s hair started falling out. Shaving it off meant the first strike against her cancer. The day she did it, she asked me to be there, to capture on film the beginning of a battle that she knew would be long. Razor in hand and, once beyond the first moment of anxiety, everything went very quickly. Each lock that fell on the tile flooring was tinged with laughter or with focused silence.
With this photo, Diane allowed me to enter into her private space, to brush against her fears. Now I know what “esprit de corps” means. I learn about determination and courage each time I look at her gaze. I will never stop being proud of her. Of her and her victory.

Grand Jury Prize 2013
Like her sisters, like her mother, my daughter Laury-Hann has had an operation for a breast tumor. All have benefitted from early cancer screening and have hence been able to prevent any risk of development.
Laury-Hann’s grandmother didn’t have this chance: both her breasts were removed.
Early screening is indispensable. Don’t be ashamed... Talk about it... It’s the key. We must be agents of our health, without any taboo.

To suggest is to create. To decry is to destroy.
I wanted to produce a simple, tender, and harmonious image that reflects the everyday life of a woman with her cancer. Horizontal, vertical... the photograph can be seen from any direction. The scarf, which normally hides the head without hair, has here slipped down over the body in order to hide the missing right breast. The piece of fabric hides more than the scar itself, as though to indicate that the wound is even bigger than it appears. Much bigger than the scar. Much bigger than having lost a breast. It affects Woman deep down in her soul.

The idea was to illustrate in a playful way the fact that early breast cancer screening is not only useful, but also far less complicated than having to face a cancer that would have not been detected early enough. Because breast cancer is also a family affair, my wife immediately accepted to enter the game and to be my model, in order to spread this message to other women, perhaps reticent about doing screening, or just simply forgetful... Let me point out that my love has regular checks!

RTL Public Prize 2013
“Huh?” “What?” “How?” “Where?” “What are you talking to me about?”
The idea came to me right away. This contrast between indifference and solidarity, between black and white and color. The fear of speaking about it, of refusing to see, of not feeling concerned... all of this means no one is shielded from it. To fight, a single alternative, SOLIDARITY and the dissemination of information. Charlotte, Myra, and Julie immediately adhered to the idea and accepted to pose. As for Marie-Lou, she drew the ribbon on the wall and on the bodies.
Alone, I wouldn’t have known what to do. It’s a team photo, a photo of solidarity for a common cause!

Accessit Prize 2013

“When their world goes askew, women draw closer to other women, an exhaustible source of sharing and laughter, of blood and tears, of tenderness and strength.” – January 29, 2010 Annick, you’re the one who reminded me of the date of this photo. You remember moreover – I’m sure of it – all the dates of your chemos. This famous day, we got together at your place, all three of us. Sonia was pregnant with Louise, and you, you’d just shaved your head, prior to losing your hair.
I don’t know why I chose this photo out of all of those that we took that day. Perhaps it’s because I love you both and the photo is a reflection of this love, it’s as simple as that.

Screening: 1 – Cancer: 0. That’s what it is to be a champion! Breast cancer screening, it can lead us straight to the goal and to victory!
Getting well is not about rediscovering one’s earlier life. It’s about laughing, glowing... In two words: being reborn. Mom’s disease brought her slumbering existence to life, made her question her indefinite-term life. She’s alive! She taught me that we can stop but never give up, she suggested to me that we should grab all the time offered to us. Mom’s Odyssey deserves my recognition on the level of my love for her: huge!

A pink breast, a little blush, to show that the vigilance of women and the support of men is a responsibility we all share.

Accessit Prize 2013
I was ten years old when my mom passed away.
When looking at this photograph, I think of myself, of my daughters. I refuse to accept that they should meet with the same story, the same fate...
My childhood stopped when I was ten. I never said “Mom” again.
My daughters will not go to sleep without me! It’s impossible that they miss out on a single one of my caresses, a single one of my kisses, or a single one of my tender words!

Too much modesty can kill you. This woman knows it, she’s a cancer ward nurse. Early cancer screening can save you. Don’t yourselves away any longer!

Seduction
“How difficult it is to trust men and to be capable of having an open mind, of revealing yourself without the fear of being judged, of frightening the other person. To please while remaining yourself now takes on all its meaning and yet it has never been so uncomfortable. I become aware of the unfortunate importance of appearance in our sanitized environment. It’s even more difficult when experiencing an ordeal like cancer, for emotions, sensitivity, and the relationship with others are suddenly increased, overdeveloped. We exude from every pore this wretched desire to enjoy life without finding the missing piece of the puzzle that made it unique.” – Isabelle

To get the upper hand on the disease and to remain the master of one’s own body! Cancer is a battle for each woman, it affects femininity itself. The disease makes no distinction between women, whether they be tall, short and tattooed, black or white. Floriane is twenty-seven years old. Afflicted with breast cancer when she was twenty-five, she is now in remission.

Putting myself center stage and showing myself naked is a personal choice. The close up, synonymous with victory, I carry out this fight with you. The pink ribbon of solidarity is my way of bringing you my support. It’s you I address and to you whom I pay tribute, admirable women that you are!
My faith, my force, and my thoughts join with you in this ordeal. I read one day that life was like a rainbow and that rain and sun were necessary in order to see its colors. Our rainbow of us all, women and men, has an eighth color: pink.

The idea was to emphasize the importance of cancer screening within the context of the fight against breast cancer. To make women understand the need to do regular checkups: in fact, early screening allows for better treatment and increases, in a significant way, the chances of being cured.
Focus on the chest in order to question the gaze. In this composition, it’s about revealing feminine intimacy differently. I chose to block out the model’s face to enable every woman to better identify with the subject, to appropriate the photo and its message.

The Ladies Circle of Marseille, a service club composed of women aged between twenty-five and forty-five years, is driven by a philosophy: that of mutual assistance and friendship.
The women in this association revealed with courage and without makeup their breasts in front of my camera. Reproduced without any retouching, the photos were used in a little calendar sold by the club to collect funds in support of the fight against breast cancer. In this photo – chosen by the Ladies themselves – the message of Sandrine and Monica is simple: concerned with prevention, they encourage women to “love their breasts.” It was a moving experience tinged with profound generosity.

My model and I both know someone close to us affected by the disease. Her grandmother conquered cancer when she was over seventy years old after two difficult years. As for my sister, she’s been fighting against a whole other disease since her birth; doctors announced a very short life expectancy, then that she couldn’t have children, giving birth being too risky for her.
Today she’s thirty-five years old, has two magnificent little daughters, and is still fighting against the disease. These experiences of ours, seen from the third person point of view, are what pushed us into bringing our little stone to the edifice in order to help convince people that hope well and truly exists so long as we want to believe in it!

Special Jury Award 2013
A simple photo, a portrait, to introduce you to the mother of one of my close girlfriends. As far as I’m concerned, she’s the strongest of the fighters confronting this scourge which is cancer.
In 2001, a year to the day after her father’s death from cancer, she learned in turn that the disease had got her in its clutches, its claws in the very core of her femininity. Total removal of the right breast then ensued, with chemotherapy treatment, radiotherapy, and hormonal treatment during eight long years.
In 2007, she benefitted from a latissimus dorsi muscle flap reconstruction, with a reduction of her left breast. In 2009, her battle against breast cancer won, she followed with a new fight: bone cancer.
Presently still fighting, enduring aggressive daily treatments, nothing seems to stop her from exuding joie de vivre. This woman is extraordinary. Love Life. Fight Cancer

Barely twenty-eight years old and already affected by cancer. My friend wanted to remain anonymous and not to show her face. I created a flower and I put it on her scar to illustrate, in my photographic composition, women’s fragility when confronted by breast cancer, which, every day, horribly carries off many our friends.

“In the beginning, my friendship with Guillaume, passionate about photos. And then, my job, which is to accompany women in their fitness program after their fight against cancer. At the finish line, this photo. It’s to dare to smile, to grasp the issue of the rapidity of research, of regular follow ups over thirty years, and the importance of early cancer screening. Let’s move forward for our breasts, let’s shape our health, and let’s get mobilized so that the wheel turns in favor of a life more rosy pink!” – Nathalie

“Rejecting breast reconstruction is a personal choice that should be respected.” Sylvie, fifty years old, a member of the Les Amazones s’exposent association, had a mastectomy after a breast cancer. She is an activist so that women can make a genuine choice to proceed or not with breast reconstruction.

“When you undergo a transformation in your body, either you hide behind false noses or pretenses that try to keep you within an aesthetic norm, or you assume your difference. ‘It’s a provocation!’ people said to me. No, just a way of better living one’s disease.” – Marie

“Crab” - We never forget our loveliest memories. We just try to distance or to comprehend differently the moments that made us suffer. My photographic project is a reflection on all the people who remain behind after the death of their mother, daughter, or lover. It shows the personal secrets of a young boy, from his jealousy to his love, from his fears to his hopes. When creating this photo, I hesitated between presenting the story of a husband, of a father, or of a brother, but I ended up choosing the one of this young boy.
Through his innocent thoughts, I have the strength to believe that one day cancer will be beaten. Let us think positively, the crab is an animal that we must succeed in controlling!

Like the lunar star, there is both shadow and light: a day symbolic of femininity, maternity, and sensual delight; another day, that of absurdity, rejection, and iniquity. Curious and fascinating objects of desire, breasts reveal themselves, illuminated, then drape themselves in silken cloth. I never stop asking myself, each morning, what their real place is in my personal life and whether they will always remain perfumed with beautiful frivolity... Pears and peaches once cut are just as sweet. But the mature fruit has a better color and flavor, if we learn to tenderly preserve it. You, Woman of the world: sister, mother, daughter, prostitute, scorned, adored... hear the wise voice of cancer screening without hesitating an instant. Estée’s Ribbon draws attention to Pink October and to quite simply asks this question: “Will my breast, healthy today, still be so tomorrow?” Something to think about.

Breast cancer screening: all of us, women and men, are in the same boat!
This photo is dedicated to my mother-in-law, so generous and loving, who died from the long-term effects of breast cancer, detected and treated too late. The love we feel for our girlfriends, our companions, our mothers, should drive us to get our heads out of the sand, to speak about cancer screening quite simply, and to thereby express our solidarity, between men and women, and between generations, because we are all concerned. This photo taken at sea was not easy: we were knocked about by the waves, clinging on to rocks... But the result was worth it: the sun filtering through the water creates strange reflections and bathes my companion’s body in a light full of love and hope, symbolized by this pink ribbon that has taken on a heart shape.

“When the gaze heals the sorrows of body and soul.” With Charlotte, we have worked on the connections, both deep and less deep, between the mind and the body. All these stigmata, these scars, these visible or invisible traces that exist and are sometimes rediscovered in the pain of everyday gestures. There where we have self-doubt. There where the reflection of our own image is betrayed by our anxieties and the disease. But sometimes, it’s about a smile, a part of our body that we particularly like. A gaze on this place and then everything else becomes beautiful.

An Amazon. Afflicted with breast cancer when she was thirty-nine, Sylvie had to undergo a mastectomy in order to save her life! Breast removal presumes the loss of a part of oneself, closely linked with the image of femininity. Self-esteem and self-assurance are shaken. Breast reconstruction? Prosthesis? What should you do to remain a woman and feel beautiful? Sylvie chose not to have reconstruction and to live as an “Amazon”, to fully accept herself with pride and good humor. She fought against the disease and won.
As a man and an artist, I was seduced by her positive energy, her fighting spirit, her courage, and her desire to live. This is what I wanted to share with this portrait of Sylvie, thereby questioning spectators: “What does being a woman actually mean? What exactly is femininity based on?”

Above all, don’t change anything Ladies... No matter the difficulties or the diseases. We love you the way you were, the way you are, the way you will be. Before, during, and after the incidents of your lives!

A few months ago, I discovered several lumps in my breast. I wanted to put in this self-portrait the multitude of emotions I felt at that moment and up until the test results: worry; the tenderness we need; confidence in life; femininity; this feeling of being betrayed by one’s body; violence; modesty scorned; breast compressed... This breast, the quintessence of our life as women and as mothers that becomes a source of fear. Cancer didn’t enter my body but made itself an integral part of my life. My daughter is suffering from a brain tumor, her grandmother is in remission from breast cancer, and several women in my family circle have conquered it.
We must listen to what our bodies tell us, take care of ourselves, fight back, support each other, observe the people who surround us and who we love with a tender and understanding gaze.

Two moms, two friends.
I wanted to participate in this competition because I think that every woman, one day, has looked at her breasts while saying “May it never happen to me!” Around me, an army of models that I found. Two of them immediately said yes. Two generous, stylish women who have, through the disease, formed an indestructible friendship. Them, proud of their battles won, and me, delighted to see them pose thus in front of my camera. At first glimpse, the photos I’d taken moved me: these two friends offered me a part of themselves. They lay down on the bed then took each other’s hand “because we’re friends and we have fought this fight together until we achieved victory!” I instantly tied their two hands together with a pink ribbon and I had my photo.

“Brave,” “a fighter,” “positive,” “cheerful,” “strong,” “beautiful,” “a warrior,” “moving,” “admirable,” “invincible,” “tenacious,” “radiant,” “determined,” “luminous,” “fierce,” “resistance,” “victory,” “love,” “support,” “life,” “energy,” “joie de vivre”… So many simple but strong words, testifying to all the solidarity of our family and friends for Stéphanie during this year full of emotion… A fine victory won thanks to them! A big THANKS to everyone!

In my daughter’s eyes, her mother is an idol, her feminine reference. She often has fun trying on her clothes or shoes. Her young age and her innocence protect her from thoughts that can sometimes be harrowing when you’re a woman. I hope she’ll be able to take advantage of every moment in her future life as a woman, secretly hoping that breast cancer will be nothing but ancient history when she is in turn an adult. Meanwhile, her mother can count on all our love to accompany her and support her during her cancer screening tests.

“My history in a triptych: my pain, my battle, my victory.
I am young, twenty-nine, I’ve just been told I have breast cancer... An oil slick flows in my veins. I am shattered. In my left breast, a mortal fire which consumes me.
But I get up, I put on my red dress and, sweating, breathless, I dance to fight. I stand on stage with a shaved head by becoming a warrior who believes in her battle and her dance. Two years of intensive treatment. Hours of shows, rage in my heart as a defense.
At last, I celebrate my victory, my round belly holds a baby when chemotherapy was supposed to leave me sterile. Fist raised, face bathed in light, soul renewed, I carry life, rosy pink life, living the big picture, living in infinite hope.” – Céline
Céline is now thirty-six. She’s expecting her second child.

I’ve chosen to commit to the campaign to raise awareness about early breast cancer screening through artistic research tinged with surrealism. The body’s position designs a heart, the arms’ movement gives the impression that the breast is cosseted by the model. This play of forms takes on all its suggestive force. The “mirrored” body suggests reflection in every sense of the world: physical, philosophical, spiritual. It also questions evolution and the future. But the image remains gentle and encourages tranquility, taking care of oneself, and deciding on the right approaches in order to protect and sustain strength, health, and happiness.

My friend, a wife and a mother of two children, is now in remission after her breast cancer returned. Without hesitating, she accepted to bear witness in an image with her daughter. “Hope” is the message of solidarity that they wished to convey. The hope of recovery thanks to the support of loved ones and to the early screening of the disease. I love her smile, full of pride, of complicity, and love. I love the contrast of the tan on her white skin, symbolizing what must remain hidden from the gaze of others. I love the attitude of her daughter, who seems to be writing on a school blackboard. Three elements remain in color. The headband, for the innocence and the role of this little girl with regard to the disease. The pink ribbon, symbol of the fight against and the victory over breast cancer. Lastly, the nail varnish, an allusion to the beauty and femininity of my friend, a woman right to the end of her fingertips.

The future “SO PINK.”
To heal up. We don’t believe it, and yet it’s possible! We must remain hopeful. Never give up. Knock out cancer by early screening!

A pretty pin-up all dressed in pink, displaying the pink ribbon of the fight against breast cancer? Not only. This photo is one of a warm and joyful commitment to the fight against breast cancer. It was taken on July 4, 2013, American Independence Day, during the attempt by the American restaurant Le Fil Rouge Café (Paris) to enter the biggest vegetarian bagel in the world into the Guinness Book of Records! Feat accomplished! The whole street was celebrating. In a few hours, more than €10,000 had been collected and given to the Le Cancer du Sein, Parlons-en ! association for medical research.