Fontiers-Cabardès, 14 octobre 2020. Avant ce jour d’octobre, je ne connaissais pas Kharma Tchan. Mais quand je l’ai vu sortant de l’épicerie de Fontiers-Cabardès coiffé de son chapeau et recouvert de son long manteau,  j’ai fait une photo. 

Alors il s’est dirigé vers moi et m’a dit, « J’ai vu au loin votre Leica avec le rond rouge. Moi aussi j’en ai un ». 

Fontiers-Cabardès, October 14, 2020. Before this October day, I did not know Kharma Chan. But when I saw him coming out of the grocery store in Fontiers-Cabardès wearing his hat and covered with his long coat, I took a picture. 

Then he walked up to me and said, « I saw your Leica with the red circle in the distance. I have one too ». 

Then after a few words, he tells me that he has been living for about a fortnight in this little village in the Montagne Noire région  where he bought a house, that he has also been an architect, photographer and art director for Vogue Italy. « I invite you to have a tea at my house« .  He used to live in Arles.

After two cups, he gets up, « Follow me, come see these pictures« . Before my eyes are two large-format prints, portraits of John Lennon and Paul Mac Cartney, signed by photographer Astrid Kirchherr in the early 1960s in Hamburg when the Beatles were not yet quite the Beatles. « When I bought them from her she told me that her boyfriend was the bassist of the band«