Dogs of Paris — Our Oldest Companions

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 There is something strangely familiar about photographing dogs.

You see them everywhere in Paris: walking beside their humans, waiting outside cafés, sitting patiently on a pavement, looking through a Metro window, pulling on a leash, or simply watching the world go by.

And sometimes, when I photograph a dog, I feel that I am actually photographing the person standing beside it.

Dogs have been part of human life for thousands of years. They were the first animals to enter into a domestic relationship with humans, long before cats, horses or farm animals became part of our daily lives. Archaeological and genetic evidence places dogs alongside humans in Europe at least 14,000 years ago, and probably considerably earlier in the domestication process.

That is an extraordinary relationship.

We began with wolves. Somehow, over an immense period of time, that relationship evolved into something completely different: an animal capable of reading our gestures, responding to our expressions and emotions, cooperating with us and forming powerful social bonds.

We often call dogs "man's best friend." It sounds like a cliché, but after thousands of years together, perhaps it isn't such a bad description.

Dogs have worked with us, protected us, hunted with us, travelled with us and, eventually, simply lived with us.

Today, they are family.

In France, however, the balance between dogs and cats is changing. The latest FACCO–Odoxa figures show that around 30% of French people own a dog, while 39% own a cat. France is still very much a country of animal lovers, but cats have become more common as pets than dogs.

Yet walk through Paris and you could easily believe otherwise.

Dogs are still part of the visual landscape of the city.

And that is what attracted me to photographing them.

I don't really photograph dogs because I am trying to make a catalogue of breeds. I am interested in their personalities, their expressions and, above all, their relationship with the humans around them.

A small dog being carried through the streets.

A huge dog waiting patiently for its owner.

Two strangers stopping to let their dogs say hello.

A dog staring at something its human hasn't noticed.

A tired dog lying underneath a café table while Paris continues moving around it.

These small moments reveal something about us.

Perhaps that is why dogs are so interesting to photograph. They are both independent characters and mirrors of our own lives.

They wait for us.

They follow us.

They sometimes ignore us completely.

And occasionally, they seem to understand us better than we expect.

The photographs in this selection were made on the streets of Paris and elsewhere, while walking with a camera and simply observing what was happening around me.

No studio. No posing. No perfect conditions.

Just dogs, humans and those brief moments when the relationship between them becomes visible.

After thousands of years together, perhaps that is still the most interesting thing about dogs:

not simply that they are our best friends,

but that somehow, they became part of what it means to be human.