Teddy Dally: Portraits of Paris’ youth

My name is Teddy DALLY and I think it’s official now that my photographer name is Big T or Le Big Teddy. I am predominantly a portrait photographer but try to be involved with everything! 

I started photography in 2017. I guess it all came about when I used to go walking in the streets alone, observing my surroundings.
At that time I only had my little iPhone 5s to take pictures with, but photography quickly became something that I appreciated so one day in 2018, my mom gave me her camera, an Olympus SP800UZ (a really cool digital camera).

Street photography wasn’t easy to get into at first. I decided to learn from books of the best. Photographers such as Joel Meyrowitz, Gordon Parks, Mary Ellen Mark, Vivian Meyer and much more. I began taking photographs of my friends, my family and then the street. I’m from Paris, so at that time I just wanted to use photography in order to show the diversity of this city. But at this point, photography wasn’t my objective in life.

The end of 2020 was a hard time for me. I had some troubles and photography helped me to get up! 2021 was the turning point. It was a huge year for me, where I was able to meet and collaborate with a lot of cool young people and artists involved in all different types of art. Through these collaborations, we were able to help each other and I feel I have built a community around me. So now I’m sure that this is what I want to do and I wish to continue this journey as a photographer.