It’s a misconception that Arthur Samier’s work is all about models at Paris Fashion Week afterparties. Some of his rolls of film turn out star-studded, but in his eyes the subjects are anonymous lovers he encounters at night. “Whether people are known or not, models or not, is irrelevant to me,” he says.
Fewer people are going to parties to find hookups. “A fear of the other has emerged,” Samier, 26, says. He likes to call those who still dare to kiss freely “les résistants de l’amour” (the resisters of love, in English). When night falls, he throws on his biker jacket or a suit, polishes off an americano, and walks out of the door in pursuit of these last bold lovers, from a generation in the midst of a romantic recession.
Samier’s debut book Choose Love (2026) documents love at night in Paris over three years. From suspended moments at underground punk gigs to mondaine fashion week evenings, the images stretch from gritty to elegant in ambience. Lust unites the sawdust-covered dance floors and art nouveau carpets.
He hopes that his work will reactivate desire – to go out, be present and feel something real through another person. If FOMO is the impetus to get people out of the house, so be it. “Young people are having less sex, whether out of inertia, a hesitation to approach others, or because the pandemic disrupted physical contact.” Some 28 per cent of French 18-24 year-olds have not had sex in the past year – an unfortunate jump from 5 per cent in 2006.
“I’m interested in images that don’t just show, but provoke a reaction, a pull toward others, toward the outside world,” Samier says. “Something that makes you want to leave your room, to experience closeness, chance, and vulnerability. If it resonates and rekindles a desire to feel and to connect, then the work continues beyond the photograph.”
A recent post by a major French magazine lasted mere hours before Samier’s community berated it until it was deleted. The damning error the writer made was to reduce his work to glamorous models captured at VIP afterparties. While he has snapped the likes of Dakota Warren, Lucky Love, Christine and the Queens, he sometimes only afterwards discovers their fame, then crops their faces so the focus remains on the moment itself.
At first, he avoided faces and focused on anonymous scenes. As he developed his style, he felt an urge to move closer and document something more intimate. “This led me to explore love at night.” He has built a photo series that captures the stages of love at night: “the first glance, the hesitation, the dance, the preparation, the makeup, and eventually the first kiss.”
He continues: “I never see myself as an outsider observing a subject. I am part of the same moment, the same space. There is no voyeurism in my approach. People feel it. They understand that I am there out of love, and that creates a mutual embrace, a fragile but real bond.”
But recently, Samier has become a distinctive face. “For now it’s fine, but people are starting to recognize me in the Paris nightlife scene. I know that as time goes on, it will get harder for me to take candid photos.”
He continues: “My photographic practice is deeply physical. I am constantly moving, adjusting, circling. It feels like a dance. I seek eye contact, proximity, a shared presence. At some point, I stop being self-conscious and enter a kind of trance, where the camera becomes an extension of instinct rather than intention.”
You could call Samier a man about town. His spots have included his friends’ club nights at Les Bains Paris, the red light district Pigalle, the iconic venue Serpent à Plume, and the opulent restaurant Maxim’s de Paris.
“I document everything. Every night. Not to collect images, but to leave a trace, a proof that we were here. I am drawn to the margins, to the quiet places where stories unfold unnoticed.” He is not searching for beauty in a conventional sense. He is searching for what remains: the unfinished, the fragile, the overlooked traces of passing lives. “Reality, to me, is never clean. It is textured, imperfect, sometimes chaotic. That is where truth resides.”
Arthur Samier’s book Choose Love (2026) is to be released worldwide in September including in the UK, Japan and South Korea. The editor is Patrick Remy Studio, which has previously worked with Nan Goldin and Martin Parr. Samier is represented by Galerie Jean Marc Hervier La Suite, where prints of his photography can be viewed.
