In Africa, you have darkness.
It's like you fall in a dark hole.
Suddenly, you have no light at all. No hope of light.
 
Many people tell me, always the same thing,
when I ask them how it is to live without light,
and often I get the same answer;
Listen, at 7 o'clock, when the night arrives
we have the real feeling of living in a tomb.
And when people tell you this,
it's terrible, because living in a tomb
is dark, it's the end of world
and it is end of live.
Benin is a country with no big disaster, no war.
And I knew I needed to capture strong pictures for each part of the story.
Some of what I wanted to capture was the difficulty for women to deliver children.
One night, a midwife called me and said;
"I have a madam coming now, and I think she will give birth tonight."
And it was very fragile, because at this point, if there are any difficulties during the delivery of the baby
you have no hospital, you have nothing around.
And this lack of electricity can really effect life or death.
I was really touched,
and at the same time, I felt very sad for the people.
Because when I was there, it was ok - but you know it's not always ok.
I remember, one day I went into a room where all the children were sleeping.
Outside, no light or just a small light,
and what we realised was a real darkness.
I can't use flash, because I need to keep the darkness.
I need to keep the mood of the darkness,
I don't keep the mood, I can't pass on what I feel,
and I need to use my technology for that.
I tried to shoot in long exposure
with the moon, but it wasn't working.
The possibility to use very high ISO
can bring the atmosphere, the magic,
and the difficulty of life of the people
living without energy or electricity in Africa.
And it's true,
digital, when you know your camera very well,
you can make you camera do what you feel and
whatever you want. This is wonderful,
because at one point you feel that your camera is the end of your fingers and your eyes,
and you go where you want.
I shoot most with two cameras. The one I use the most is the Canon 5D mark iv.
I also sometimes use Canon 1 DX mark ii.
I was very surprised because I shot in ISO20000 and ISO32000
It was incredible, and the result was amazing.
The quality of digital have changed a lot,
especially the dynamic has changed a lot.
This is wonderful because you get so much more possibilities between the highlights and the shadows.
When you work with high ISO, you still have some grain.
It's beautiful, and of course, the files are bigger.
You can do whatever you want.
When I get a situation, I have no doubt about my tools, and about the ability to capture the picture.
The biggest challenge is to get the situation.
In the end, I feel that this work perhaps helps highlight the problem.
Our work has never changed the world, but it can be a small part in moving it along.
