I have never in all my travels throughout the world omitted to bring my camera along. I was seven years old when I was given my first camera. When I would go on walks, I was naturally often absorbed in my thoughts and reveries, and I forgot to see what was around me. My first camera in hand, I found myself suddenly on lookout duty, and this vigilance permitted me to see what had escaped me before. My camera was for me never just another box of souvenirs, but much more than that: a means of going looking for the world. At fourteen my first long voyage took me to Greece. At the time it was still possible to spend the night in the ruins of Delphi. Hellenic architecture was for me a major aesthetic shock. My modest 6x9 camera didn’t produce marvels, but a photographic passion was born. In the following years I ambled across Germany and traveled through all of Europe, North America and, later, Morocco, Egypt… Since the end of the eighties my destinations of choice have been the countries of Asia. In the course of time I have built quite a collection of images, in which a few of my interests stand out as major themes: architecture, street scenes, and especially women and their condition. When I got back from a trip to Southeast Asia I decided to show a few photographs under the pseudonym Joe Detam on the theme “To be a Woman in the East”.