“Photography is the best passport for journeys”

How the life of Slovak Romanis is being photographed by Claude and Marie-José Carré, a couple from France.

Claude and Marie-José Carré are French photographers who have been documenting the life of Eastern European Romanis for over 20 years now. In their journeys, they are photographing the everyday life of Romani communities, trying to set the life of this country ajar in their optical devices. The place to which the Carré couple from France returns most often is Slovakia. This is the place where one of the largest Romani communities in Europe lives. French photographers have stayed many times in Slovak villages, for a long time, in order to register life which is slowly running in this region, often pretty much unnoticed by others.

 Claude and Marie-José Carré say that, despite the authenticity of this rather hermetically sealed nation, the modernity increasingly permeates their archaic traditions.

The French couple have been interested in documentary photography ever since their teenage years. Then, both of them loved to register what they have seen with the help of a photo film—only to look into details later, and recount a story for the world. A story which one can only see through one’s own lens.

“Photography is the best passport for a journey”, — is what Claude and Marie-José Carré think about their profession.

Initially, the characters in the photographs made by French documentarians did not want the lens to interfere with their private life. They initially viewed photography as something weird and strange. However, the regular trips and communication helped build a more private and friendly atmosphere of trust—an atmosphere which shaped not only professional but, first and foremost, warm relations between the photographers and the characters in their black-and-white photos. Eventually, the photography became something integral and very important for the Carré family. Not only they show how a Romani life looks like but learn something new for themselves.

"Apart from photographs, every year we bring home something more than a photo: new knowledge about the lifestyle of these people. Of course, this constitutes an entirely different everyday life and rules—but this lifestyle is, all the difficult living conditions notwithstanding, something that is filled with joy, love, and human warmth”, - so recall Claude and Marie-José Carré. 

In the upcoming future, the French photographer couple plan to publish a documentary photo book entitled “Otisk cest” dedicated to the life of Slovak Romanis, their everyday life, tradition, lifestyle, the importance of their trades, and personal stories of individual characters. Whereas Claude and Marie-José Carré are currently opening exhibitions of their photos in museums of Czechia, Slovakia, and France.