Anton Reyes
Following the unseen
The garbage collectors strike in Paris is a reminder that waking up every morning to a clean city is not to be taken for granted. As, without the intervention of the 5,000 “men and women in green”, the waste piled up in the streets, threatening to submerge us in just a few days, we were sent back to our individual and collective behaviours.
It was by becoming aware of my own indifference that I wanted, in January 2023, to meet these workers who are often invisible despite their very bright uniforms. I was able to follow them on different operations, especially at night, when the work done is not seen and therefore not considered. This photographic series, by endeavouring to put the “agents de Propreté” back at the center of the urban environment, aims to reveal in its essential and tedious dimensions, this work of endless repetition.
My name is Anton Reyes and I am a 25-year-old documentary photographer based in Paris. I work with a constant desire to shed light on everyday subjects, seemingly ordinary situations: a deserted highway rest stop in the middle of the night, a garbage truck navigating the streets of Paris, a country house awakening in the glow of dawn. Photography is for me a means of revealing the beauty of the ordinary, of capturing, through patience and attention, what is generally seen without looking. It is with this approach that I build each of my documentary series on long-term projects.