François-Marie Banier's portraits are records of creative encounters. Since the sixties, the French photographer's camera has captured artists and writers, heads of state, actors and passers-by without a hint of shyness or posing. In three decades of dialogue with famous personalities like Salvador Dalí, Vladimir Horowitz and Samuel Beckett, François Mitterand, Princess Caroline of Monaco, Isabelle Adjani, or unknown people, Banier has created memorable black-and-white studies of people and faces. In 1991 Françoise-Marie Banier held the first public exhibition of his photos in the Centre Pompidou in Paris. Earlier, his drawings had been enthusiastically praised by Salvador Dalí, who was his friend and patron for many years. In 1966, when he was just 19 years old, Banier published his first novel, "Les Résidences secondaires". This volume is a collection of the photographer's most impressive photographs and paintings.