Aline Deschamps

Canon Ambassador Aline Deschamps is a French-Thai photographer whose work mainly focuses on issues relating to identity, including gender, migration, exile and cultural heritage. Using creative digital techniques, she challenges established perceptions and encourages us to see familiar subjects in new ways.

Aline was born in Paris but was raised in Bangkok until she was six years old, before returning to live in the French capital. She studied in Paris, gaining a master's degree in international relations at Pantheon-Sorbonne University and a postgraduate diploma in digital media arts at École Professionnelle Supérieure d'Arts Graphiques (EPSAA).

One of Aline's recent personal projects is Les Grands Hommes (The Great Men), which grew out of her voluntary work with refugees in Paris. Here she presents her subjects in a radically original manner: in a position of power and dignity, inspired by the French official presidential portrait. Another of her projects is Marvelous Manhood, a series of portraits that explores and subverts the contemporary construction of masculinity by showing men embracing their sensibility and vulnerability.

However, Aline says the project which has impacted her the most – and been the most challenging – is her latest, I Am Not Your Animal. This series of documentary images showcases the daily lives of migrant domestic workers who originally came from Sierra Leone and are now stranded in Beirut, Lebanon.

"For this project I had to be very involved with the women, which was emotionally demanding because they were obviously in incredibly difficult situations," she says. "Their everyday life was a real struggle to survive, and they had been badly abused and neglected. But once I began to return to meet them, they started to trust me. The relationship was like a friendship, and it helped the women regain trust towards others and eventually return home."

I Am Not Your Animal combines the two social and artistic ambitions that ultimately drive all of Aline's work. "I aim for my projects to challenge the common perceptions of my subjects and have a positive social impact, as well as being aesthetically beautiful or poetic," she says. "If I can do that, then my goal has been achieved."

Why do you use different creative techniques to present your images?

"Documentary work is about showing reality, but there are so many ways to do it. Using different creative techniques is just a choice on how you want to tell your story, and this artistic approach can raise different questions and lead to different emotions for the audience. That is what interests me. I try to adapt my techniques according to what I want to say and the emotions I wish to provide."


What inspired you to explore contemporary masculinity in your project Marvelous Manhood?

"My generation has a lot of discussions about gender, and my male friends tell me about the weight of gender stereotypes and the impact toxic masculinity has had on them. So for me, it was important to highlight this subject. Displaying more diverse representations of masculinity is not only a necessity for men, it also stands among the current challenges of feminism."


Is there any advice you'd give to other female documentary photographers?

"Don't be scared to really focus on your work and express your own sensibility – it can push you forward to show the world from a female perspective. There are a lot of things that men can't see or capture. For example, in my recent series on women migrant domestic workers, I don't think a man could have captured the things I did, because he wouldn't have been accepted in this circle – the women wouldn't have felt comfortable. So see it as a strength, and take advantage of being a woman to tell stories in your own personal way."

Aline Deschamps

"My main advice as a documentary photographer is to try to build a meaningful relationship with the people you're photographing. When you work on a long project, for a few weeks or months, you develop a relationship where the subject can share with you stories they would not otherwise reveal. And these stories can help you to build a new narrative, one that's much more original and creative. I feel that these meaningful relationships are at the core of strong visual storytelling."

Instagram: @alinedeloscampos

Twitter: @alineldeschamps

Website: www.alinedeschamps.com