François-Marie Banier was born in 1947 in Paris. A novelist and playwright, Banier has also been taking photographs of public figures and anonymous people in the street since the 1970s. In 1991 the Centre Pompidou in Paris displayed his photography for the first time; exhibitions followed in Europe, Asia and America. The Maison Européenne de la Photographie in Paris presented a retrospective in 2003, exhibiting Banier’s “written” and “painted” photographs for the first time. His books published by Steidl include Perdre la tête (2006), Beckett (2009), Never stop dancing (2016) and Dreamers (2019).