On Friday, November 13, a series of terrorist attacks in Paris left the city in a state of blue, red and white: stricken with sadness, buried in blood and praying for peace. Magnum photographer Alex Majoli was having dinner with a friend that night at Chez Omar, just two blocks away from the Bataclan music venue where men with AK-47 assault rifles opened fire. The next day, Majoli walked the streets of Paris taking photographs of the aftermath. It allowed him to organically react to what was taking place and observe others all around him -- both inside and outside Paris. "I try to be a human being before a photographer," he said.

Alex Majoli's images capture a wide spectrum of moods and reveal the struggles that have permeated France's people as they try to pay their respects to all the lives lost and affected while simultaneously attempting to continue on with their daily lives. The Italian photographer says he tries to capture the theatrical side of life, using light in a way that "creates this idea of fiction, of theater." His photographs from the aftermath of the Paris attacks are a raw black-and-white documentation of a nightmare -- a nightmare we cannot wake up from and that has tragically manifested itself onto our stage, into our reality.

The photographs were featured with an interview on the CNN Photos blog. They were highlighted prominently on the CNN homepage and shared widely on social media. Majoli has covered numerous conflicts and humanitarian issues, from the fall of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan in 2001 to the refugee crisis in Greece just last month. He says those experiences are quite different from what he recently went through in Paris. "I'm worried," the photographer said. "I'm just worried."