The series Hopeless Romantic by Julien Mauve may seem cynical at first, but it actually restores your faith in love, by proving that all relationships essentially unfurl according to the same pattern. This means that they might end the same way, but also that love is right around the corner. In but a few pictures, which purposely look staged, as if taken from a theater play, Mauve tells the tale of an entire relationship: how it starts, hits the highest highs, then falls to the lowest lows, only to end… and possibly begin again? The series was done in collaboration with ENSP Arles’s Pauline Ballet and features actors Alice Pol and Gregoire Ludig, as well as costumes by Cecile Petit. Says the photographer in the series’ description: “Hopeless Romantic is a real love story. A boy and a girl find each other, and their story unfolds: from their first meeting to the last moments of their love, from hopeless romanticism to the final disillusion. Because when reality overruns the magic of love and the illusion of romantic clichés vanish, men and women find themselves looking at what and who they really are. As reality sets in, there comes the difficult time when we must conciliate our relationship with our expectations.”