"I had to go and meet women who hadn't chosen to live within four walls. We talked a lot. They told each other, and I tried to offer them a moment out of that time."
French photographer Bettina Rheims places the question of femininity at the heart of her work. She explores in particular female sexuality and begins by photographing prostitutes encountered by chance during her walks in Paris. She endangers as much as it sublimates the beauty of these models. Exposed, wavering, or triumphant, they jostle and intimidate the viewer. Bettina Rheims is above all an image-maker, defending in her practice an age-old pictorial tradition. Most of Bettina Rheims' photographs bear witness to this heritage, through work on composition and narration in particular.