I Trust Me {Paris Photo}

I Trust Me © 2015 Chantal-Hélène Wagner

I'm not sure what to say about this picture. I guess it strikes me as an instantaneous and unequivocal summing up of ready-made values to lead your life. You can peruse magazines looking for inspiration, answers and advice, eat 70% black chocolate, have an eco-cool fridge, rise against racism with the "Touch pas à mon pote" sticker, trust only your own self - but to do what?...

Somewhere in that picture, I'm invited to finish the sentence with I Trust Me... to Live the High Life. The champagne bottles as status symbols - but also phallic symbols - appearing above Al Pacino on a green back speaking as Scarface, with an appearance of the French brand "Casino", invites you to think of an upwardly mobile society based on money, grittiness and tension. Even the yellow plastic footballs then make me think more of Brazilian favelas with kids kicking in the balls to get out of their condition, than of the Luxembourg garden, which is not far away though.

It's also a mix of American dream and Rêve français, to which I am sensitive.

This comes from an area of the boulevard St Michel which is a bit rawer.