The only twentieth-century figurative painter I have ever loved is Francis Bacon. He was the last, dramatic exponent of Romanticism. After Picasso in 1907, I have only ever been interested in abstract art; it embraces a myriad of genres in one of the most fertile periods of art in recent times. What they all share is a refusal to reproduce what surrounds us in paint, according to the ‘realistic’ tradition. In photography, however, ‘realism’ is considered a fundamental, essential concept by many. While quintessential speculations do not interest me, I realize that with a camera one can also create images that seem abstract. Still, one must inevitably start from a real, tangible thing; one looks more closely at it, transfiguring it into a fixed image. In Abstract terms, an element of commonly perceived reality is taken out of context; the aim is defamiliarization or ‘Estrangement’, a concept first developed by the Russian Formalists a century ago. The result is an image with its own composition, colours and unique qualities. It bears witness to an encounter with a reality to which you had been oblivious. That is when photography becomes a form of sharing.