One neighbourhood in Nice certainly won’t have welcomed this news. Shaped by decades of immigrant housing policy, l’Ariane has more than its fair share of social problems – nearly half of the residents live below the national poverty line. Most French Riviera-dwellers have never set foot there – why would they? Isolated on the north-eastern edge of Nice, sandwiched between motorway and mountains, l’Ariane is best known by reputation alone – a media-influenced image of crime, insecurity, and exclusion. In the run-up to these elections, Hyphen, an online Muslim magazine, asked me to make portraits and street photography there, for a hopeful feature on its growing grassroots political engagement and a new sense of community optimism. Now, however, the title, ‘Young, French and Muslim: the new electoral force to be reckoned with’, falls rather flat.

Where the city’s waste burns

To begin the day, I set out to make a photograph that would show Ariane’s setting. However, on a quiet street in the rather bijou neighbourhood of Cimiez high above, I struggled to get a clean view over villa roofs and garden walls. If the gentleman returning from a morning baguette run was surprised to see a photographer at his door, asking to access the decking of his front terrace, he didn’t show it.

“What is that chimney pumping smoke in front of the apartment blocks?” I asked, as I leaned my camera on the banister and looked down over the valley below. It turned out that before he retired, he worked there. “It is a waste incineration facility. All the household waste from the entire city of Nice is taken there to be treated. It burns day and night.”

Mosque portrait

Down l’Ariane, my first destination was the mosque, to meet imam Obaïda Ben Salem. Prayer rooms might’ve been a better term for the complex, housed anonymously at the base of a tatty apartment building, yet I was nonetheless enthusiastic to make Obaïda’s portrait there. It’s not often that a female photographer gets the chance to enter, let alone photograph in, the male area of a mosque.

Obaïda was a quiet, warm man, patiently indulging my curious questions as he showed me around. The central room holds 1500 men at prayer and dozens of equally-spaced ‘tram’lines on the carpet keep the worshippers in an orderly placement, if somewhat up-close-and-personal. God has not one but 99 names, and they looked quite beautiful, etched in flowing Arabic on a wall plaque. I asked Obaïda if he wouldn’t mind showing me the prayer sequence that he does up to 17 times a day, and I followed his movements alongside, to see how it felt (“not dissimilar to my morning yoga sun salutations!” He just smiled.)

His was not a difficult portrait to make. Portraits on the French Riviera, especially when known personalities are concerned, generally require varying degrees of ego management. Obaïda, however, showed neither any particular attention to his appearance, nor a desire to control his self image. A man of God, I suppose, has ‘other cats to whip’ [a literal translation of d’autres chats à fouetter, a delightful French phrase to say that one has better things to concern oneself with].

Disconnected and invisible

After we had finished the portrait, I was to take street photographs to align with the feature and Obaïda agreed to show me around. When I first moved to Nice, it was said that even the police would hesitate before driving through l’Ariane, where projectiles would likely be thrown at them, or worse. Yet much has changed there since. A large, new commisariat de police has cut crime levels; social housing abounds, with many ‘innovative’, once-gay-now-faded, pastel-coloured apartment blocks (presumably l’Ariane was a low-visibility zone where architects -with limited means, yet big ideas that lime green concrete raises spirits- could cut their teeth) and ‘parks’ were created. These may be neither large nor numerous, and have a low ratio of trees to concrete, but it is clear overall that public investment has been made in the neighbourhood.

However, with my brief to fulfil as photographer for this article, I was looking for what hasn’t changed. L’Ariane remains in many ways disconnected and invisible to the rest of the city. The 12,000 residents have been hearing empty promises about an extension of the tramway to connect them with downtown Nice for many years. Buses are few and offer limited routes. There are countless stories of lifts breaking or hot water not functioning in social housing, and these things taking forever to get repaired. When I came to write the captions for my pictures, the Bermuda triangle sprung to mind as I struggled – and failed – to find on Google Maps the shops, cafés and other local businesses that I had photographed.

I talked with Obaïda about Tunisia’s Jasmine revolution in 2011 and the portraits of immigrants I had made back then on the Italy-France border, and on the outskirts of Nice. What was the make-up of the population here in l’Ariane itself, I wondered? “These days, immigration is no longer majority North African – it is the Chechens who run this joint now.” (Nice is indeed home to one of the largest Chechen communities in France).

If he was reluctant when I asked him to show me how to get into the central yard of one of the original tower blocks, Obaïda didn’t show it. Hurriedly erected in the aftermath of the Algerian war in the 50s and 60s, each unit consists of giant walls of 9 stories of flats built in a four-sided square – with neither gap nor public entrance. We had to wait for a dark steel door to open and a car to come out of the underground acces ramp before we could sneak in on foot. Coming up on the inside, we found ourselves in a giant car park that occupies the central space. Lacking any greenery at all, and with every apartment looking across, up, down, right and left into a dozen others, it felt deeply claustrophobic and unsettling… as it also was when, returning to the underpass, a couple of hooded young men crystallised from the shadows – and told me they liked the look of my camera.

“I’m a photographer, not drugs police”

Working as a photographer in a marginalised neighbourhood can touch two points of friction. Firstly, the value of camera gear on display could represent rich pickings for an opportunist with an outlaw frame of mind. Secondly, a photographer with a long lens doesn’t go down well if she/he inadvertently points it at illegal persons or illegal behaviour. I’d been taking a photograph down a street, unaware that the group of men in the distance were, judging from their subsequent aggression, engaged in an activity that they didn’t want recorded for posterity. On noticing me, one chap ran down the street towards me, yelling “OI! You can’t take my picture!!!!“; another gave the game away, bellowing “Are you drugs police??” It was the third time I’d been accused of being a policewoman that day, and if I had been mildly amused earlier, now I felt intimidated. I had been so far away that you could barely make out the figures, let alone recognise individuals, in the photos. This turned out to be fortunate, as I quickly found myself surrounded and the group ringleader demanded to see the back of my camera. The question he asked was rhetorical, “What would you do, if I grabbed your camera off you and smashed it on the floor??”

Under the benevolent gaze of election posters for the socialist ‘Nice Front Populaire’, a woman who was waiting in line for the food aid centre to open also made her dislike of my presence clear. The repeated climax of her long, loud speech was that she would “massacre me” if her picture appeared anywhere. My reassurances that I had not -and would not- photograph her, and the imam’s calming tone, did little to stem her tirade.

The face of grassroots change

While being a photographer I had met an unwelcoming side, I could still see signs of the strong community that Obaïda and the journalist had described. At every corner, passers-by warmly greeted their imam, people sat together in companionship and I heard how much neighbours try to help each other here – perhaps logical in a zone that tends to be shunned by outsiders.

After saying goodbye to Obaïda, I had a last rendez-vous with an extraordinary young woman, Nawel Boumehdi. No stranger to media, Nawel is an engaging spokesperson for the l’Ariane community. A citizen participation organiser, she is also president of a local cultural association, which organises such diverse activities as a cinema club, ‘Apéritif littéraire‘ events to present the likes of Kafka or Dostoevsky (the latter was a bilingual conference, presented both in Russian and French) and an ‘anti-homophobia evening’. This she does only in her free time, when she is not busy with her day job in the building trade.

“You can park here. With a bit of luck, your car might even still be here when we get back“, said Nawel, with a twinkle in her eye. I made some portraits of her at the entrance to l’Ariane, as the winter sun’s rays were lengthening and casting the towers behind her in a warm, kindly light. Colourfully dressed in a striking, unique outfit, she held herself with great presence in front of my camera. With people like Nawel speaking for, inspiring and empowering this community, hope for grassroots change will not be lost – regardless of the change in guard at city hall.

> See Reportage portfolio

For those unfamiliar with the term, an ‘advertorial’ is a newspaper or magazine article that is presented in the style of an objective journalistic feature, but is in fact an advertisement, funded by one or more brands. Jon wrote this particular piece about his life as a Mediterranean food writer, sharing hot restaurant tips of the moment and discussing why food and photography enrich any travel experience… before plugs for Amex and Marriott Hotels were then smoothly woven through that text. My job as photographer was to make an environmental portrait of Jon and pictures of his daily life as a foodie in the South of France, with oh-so-French fresh ingredients aplenty.

Aspirational French Riviera living

We began the day in the house that Jon shares with his novelist wife (another dream job, surely). If one were to picture the French Riviera home in which one’s food writer alter ego might live, it might just look a little like this. The architectural equivalent of a genteel, elderly dame, this elegant Belle Époque house is dwarfed by neighbouring blocks of flats, yet its rooftop garden must be the envy of every apartment overlooking it. Carefully renovated, with respect for its old Niçoise glory, the house’s interior was furnished with objects acquired during exotic travels, perhaps, or from local discerning antiquaires. That morning, the lounge seemed to offer a warm invitation to sit, legs drawn up into the velvet of a Louis XVI-style chair, with a good book and a cool orange pressée, memories from across the Mediterranean gently blowing in through the tall, open windows…

Photography direction to ‘keep it natural’

However, I was there to capture a dream, not step into one. The Guardian Labs photo editor had sent over a comprehensive shot list, and our first set-up was on the rooftop. Jon was to be pictured in the sunshine, wearing an apron as if preparing a BBQ, the table set for a sumptuous meal for his guests. Summer morning sun in the South of France is better imagined than photographed, though, and Jon struggled not to squint as its harsh rays bounced off the bright, white surfaces all around.

We then picked out his most appealing, brand-free, shopping bag and set out to walk Rio, Jon’s oh-so-French-Riviera, small, fluffy dog, to Cours Saleya. Here, at Nice’s best-known market, overpriced vegetable and flower stalls jostle with souvenir stands in a colourful shopping heaven for tourists. Yet there is still just enough local produce present – and even the odd chef doing a spot of emergency shopping – to make it ‘authentic’. Jon smelled fresh produce – and I photographed it. Vibrant fruit burst out of punnets – and I photographed it. Jon chatted with friendly market sellers – and I photographed it. “Nothing too “acting” – please keep it natural and not too smiley in every shot”, the picture editor had requested. This kind of ‘natural’ still takes directing on the part of the photographer (“another peach sniff please, but one step to the left, so you’re not in the shade“); framing (to leave a table creaking under the weight of mass-produced Provence purple face towels out of shot); and patience (waiting for other shoppers wearing masks or tasteless board shorts to exit the frame). Yet the material was real enough.

Hot tips and a photogenic knife

Insider information is often a perk of my job as an assignment photographer (I discovered the oldest socca establishment in Nice on an assignment for GEO; experienced first hand the joys of Marseille’s melting pot cuisine on a cover shoot and a stylish London magazine sent me to Saint Tropez to shoot the makers of the eponymous sandal). Yet exploring your home city with a leading travel writer alongside is a rare treat. Not only did I get the lowdown on the hottest restaurants of the moment, but I acquired a wonderful new kitchen implement. As we made our back from the market, Jon pointed to a small side street, and said, “Do you know the little knife shop down there? It’s wonderful.” I didn’t – and instantly wanted to (being someone who particularly appreciates a good knife). There, in the window, I spotted the most beautiful little Japanese number, complete with cherrywood handle and case. But handwritten price ticket must’ve been confused with another – it was far too cheap. On a whim, I popped inside anyway. The sales advisor told me the price was actually correct and that he, too, was astonished that such a fine tool could be sold so cheap. Once in my hand, the knife simply didn’t want to return to the display. Jon and I pushed, “buy props if you need” to its logical conclusion. The next stage of the photography would be to focus on him preparing vegetables in his kitchen, and, as he said, his own knives weren’t photogenic, at all.

Tight squeeze in the kitchen

It turned out that the most challenging place for me to capture Jon’s inspiring foodie lifestyle was… his kitchen. Clean, white and functional though it was, it wasn’t quite the cuisine space that had been outlined to me…by the photo editor in London (who had never seen it). A narrow, galley-style kitchen, it was surprisingly dark and very quickly filled by Jon, Chloé, my assistant, and I. As Jon enjoyed the novelty of new Japanese steel and started to prepare his market-fresh vegetables for a dinner party later (he had done what anyone with a dining table elaborately laid for a photoshoot and a basketful of produce props would do, and invited a bunch of friends around), I squashed and squeezed myself into the corner of the kitchen. Chloé perched precariously on the worktop and flattened herself against the wall to provide the lighting.

Crema al moscatello

The last shots I made were of Jon, sitting on his balcony in the shade of a kumquat tree, putting the finishing touches to the evening’s dessert. Chloé and I, given the ultimate joy of licking mixing bowl spoons, confirmed that his Crema al moscatello (whipped cream, flavoured with sweet wine and served with meringue and hazelnut biscuits) was just as delicious as it looked. I wondered whether Jon’s friends would, perhaps as they tasted this treat later, raise their eyebrows and laugh uproariously at the idea of him enthusing about staying in Marriott hotels and flashing his platinum card, as he predicted (“They know me too well to believe that!“). Yet, after a dinner of home-cooked Mediterranean dishes and fine local wine, with the sun setting over the rooftops and the scent of fresh herbs releasing their joys into the dusk air, this detail would be unlikely, I thought, to tarnish Jon’s integrity, and the authenticity of the moment.

I was invited to make his portrait for The Guardian’s ‘Big Interview’ in Monaco.

Something quiet, down-to-earth and straightforward does indeed appear to remain central to Geraint’s character, even after reaching such dizzy heights in his professional life. I photographed him in the sumptuously-named Roseraie Princesse Grace [Princess Grace Rose Garden], a small public park beside the Monaco heliport. Geraint’s look was far from ‘Monaco sumptuous’: he arrived for the shoot wearing a utilitarian white T-shirt, casual shorts and a leather string bracelet. He was perfectly punctual too – respectful of my schedule and mindful that he had to leave to pick his kids up from school 15 minutes later. If having performed for a film crew all morning had worn him down (not only had his retirement news broken, Geraint also had a well-timed autobiography coming out, generating plenty of press interest), he had the courtesy not to show it, as we efficiently ran through my portrait set-ups.

As the shoot had been arranged at the last minute, there’d been no time to arrange the permissions a professional photographer in Monaco normally requires, but I knew the gardens were not a police patrol hotspot. On my recce there that morning, I’d seen only a few senior Monégasques taking the air with their Monégasque dogs, and numerous gardeners working discreetly in the undergrowth. I had no trouble identifying a couple of quiet corners that would be suitable for my portraits. We would not be disturbed there, during the short time I would be spending photographing Geraint.

Or so I thought… Barely into the tenth minute of shooting, we had just arrived at a magnificent giant tree, just off the path on a lawn, whose trunk I’d spotted as a backdrop – beautifully textured (yet ‘normal’). I led the way up the bank with my photography bag, Geraint walked his bike onto the grass and his agent followed at the rear, kindly carrying my flash unit and umbrella on a stand. So I suppose it did look like a photoshoot, albeit a light one. Before I had a chance to switch on the light, a trio of green-uniformed gardeners were upon us. “Do you have authorisation to shoot here, Madame?” Apparently knowing the way Monaco’s photographer rules work, Geraint and his agent were moving away before I had a chance to complete my “No, I don’t” reply.

So when, after a brief exchange with Mr Officious Gardener, I gestured that they could come back, Geraint looked truly perplexed. “Can we really do the portrait here, without permission? How on earth did you manage that?!”

Being a normal yet determined photographer can sometimes bear fruit too… even in Monaco.

> See Portrait portfolio

It’s all in the length of the queue

I discovered the bakery on a dreary, drizzly March morning in Digne-Les-Bains. The market was buzzing – the only spot in this quiet rural town that was. A photogenic, sunny South of France scene it was not: between stalls piled high with a limited selection of muddy, end-of-winter vegetables (leeks, turnips and apples were enjoying a rare moment of popularity), raincoated locals greeted each other and sipped coffee on the move to keep warm. I was staying nearby and disappointed by the local bakeries (yes, living in France has made me ‘particular’ about bread). So when I spied a little stall loaded with rustic-looking loaves and a considerable queue in front, I paused. Each customer seemed to have brought their own bread bag (fortunate, since there seemed to be none behind the stall, branded or otherwise) and no-one seemed in any hurry – good bread being worth the wait. Instead of a sign above the stall, a small blackboard announced ‘Pain au levain‘ [naturally leavened bread]: organic, baked locally in a wood-fired oven and ‘good for both digestion and the climate‘ (this ‘néoruraux‘ sort of message was punctuated by an emoji wink).

Batman’s headquarters

A few days – and some splendid sandwiches – later, I drove up a stony, hillside track above the hamlet of Brunet. On reaching a farm at the end, I left the car and stepped into a warm, unexpectedly modern, bakery building, to photograph Benoît and Matthieu making their slow bread.

The two new business partners decided early on that a public-facing bakery would be too intense in terms of overheads, demands and pressure. So they established a sort of barter-a-bakery arrangement with an enterprising farmer for the production side. Without actually renting it, they have full use of a space with a wood-fired oven in return for the fruits of one morning’s baking each week (presumably the farmer sells rather than eats the quantity of bread they make for him that day). My question about how to refer to their ‘bakery with no name’ in photograph captions elicited some humorous embarrassment from the pair. “We really do need to get that sorted“, admitted Benoît. “Apart from ‘Batman [a somewhat surprising name for a bakery -a mash-up of their surnames, Baton and Mannino-], we haven’t given much thought to what to call our business“.

Perhaps more importantly, they only bake on three mornings a week, at a workbench from which they can see endless olive groves, cypress trees and a very big sky.

Yeast is for life

Pain au levain is… well, just slower than ‘industrial bread’. Quality trumps both quantity and speed in this kitchen. The term pain au levain is often literally translated as ‘sourdough bread’, but I find it a misnomer. In France, levain refers to the natural fermentation process itself: all dough grown from a wild yeast culture. Unlike a stereotypically large, dark, sour-tasting loaf, pain au levain comes in a myriad of different forms. The basic dough contains only flour, salt and water: yet it can be white or wholegrain; plain bread or brioche; round, oblong from a tin, or rolled into a cylinder The magic is that the yeast is alive. Like any living thing, the levain [yeast starter] responds to its environment – and so the bakers respond, adjusting the baking process, water temperature and timings according to the season and the weather (storms, for example, accelerate the rising speed of dough). A baker can keep their base culture alive – feeding, caring for it and drawing from it each time they bake- for their entire working lifetimes. (Who needs a tamagotchi?)

Gut-friendly gluten

Back in the mists of time, the main cereal grown around here, in the harsh, high mountains where Provence meets the Alps, was petit épeautre (small spelt). Motivated by ancestral country wisdom, Benoît points out a petit épeautre loaf ready for the oven, and starts enthusing about the subject that he enjoyed best during his training course: ancient varieties of wheat. “It would be a dream for me to grow wheat for all our breadmaking needs.” He hasn’t got very far with this yet, though. Available agricultural land is scarce, and he explains it can be difficult for néoruraux to obtain it from locals (who like to keep things in the family). But his early attempts on a tiny plot of borrowed land have borne fruit. Benoît successfully grew a local variety of wheat called Saisette de Provence and he and Mathieu make a handful of – highly popular – loaves from its flour every week.

“More and more of us struggle with gluten, yet when we try ancient varieties of wheat, we find bread that is far easier to digest, and much tastier! It’s a tragedy that these old varieties are dying out, just because the industry favours a few, intensively-bred kinds of wheat that produce quick, high-volume bread.” It’s not that old strains of wheat have less gluten; in fact, they contain more — but it’s a more nutritious, shorter-chain kind that doesn’t overwhelm our stomachs in the same way.

The sound of ready bread

All morning, I photographed Benoît and Mathieu as they glided through the choreography of simultaneously making a selection of different pains au levain. After mixing the dough, they held, stretched, brushed and folded giant portions of it, before gently setting these down to rise – each round of activity and rest increases the dough’s life and strength. After the shaping of the loaves (and another short rest), came the hot, heavy job of loading them into the oven via a huge wooden shovel. I had imagined that there would be a fixed baking time, to stick to without question, yet the oven was fuelled by wood (mainly oak trees from the farm’s wilder corners) and can be capricious, needing fuelling every few minutes. After each wave of baking, the bakers turned a couple of steaming loaves over and knocked with floury knuckles on the underside, craning their heads in to listen carefully for the – to me, indistinguishable – sound that meant they were cooked through.

Croissants? No thank you, we’re French!

I was surprised to notice that croissants, the celebrated French breakfast staple (and subject of another of my reportages as photographer in Nice) did not seem to figure here. Yet I quickly realised it wasn’t a welcome subject to raise. “Croissants?!? They were a commercial invention, not traditionally French at all! And they’ve only been around for 100 years!” The subject of the famed French stick got no better a response from these passionate bakers. “Baguettes?! Oh là là!! They were invented when they built the Métro in Paris, for the workers!” If it was authentic, traditional French bread I was after, I must throw all my distasteful, misguided clichés out of the window ,and look instead at their large, round, wholewheat loaves, gently browning in the oven.

Benoît and Mathieu’s disdain for commercialism and their decision not to invest in a public-facing bakery has not stopped them from building up a steady business. Word-of-mouth is powerful, and it has spread like butter around their bread. The pair deliver to a couple of local organic shops, and they sell all the loaves they pile onto two small trestle tables at the market every week. Throwing a middle finger up to Macron’s drive for an ever-more productive France, they don’t dream big. In fact, they don’t really want work to haunt their dreams at all. Forty good loaves in a day is enough.

Was it the smell of the bread? My own attraction toward slow living? Or even a beyond-the-grave nudge from my great-grandfather, who’d been a baker in Scotland? I don’t know, but just before I left, I surprised myself by asking whether Benoît and Mathieu could spare a little jar of levain, their living yeast culture. I’d never made my own bread before, but it was time to try. So I did…

Godfather of iTunes

I was commissioned to make a portrait of Eddy Cue, Apple’s Senior Vice President. Reporting to CEO Tim Cook (Jobs’s replacement bears an equally low-key name – company policy?), Eddy is the man ultimately responsible for Apple Services – and there are an Apple lot of them. In the late 80s, Eddy made his name launching iTunes. Today he runs: Apple Music; Apple TV; Apple Film; Apple Podcasts; Apple iCloud – for you to store all this fun entertainment – and Apple Pay – for you to pay for it. He himself is ‘annually compensated’ to the tune of double-figure millions, and my photoshoot with him was as challenging as photographing a highly recognisable A-list celebrity can be, with the added spice of a Formula One racetrack, gale-force winds and a car collision thrown in.

F1 film

It was late May and the French Riviera was buzzing. The Cannes Film festival was in full swing and, over in Monaco, where I was to photograph Eddy, the Grand Prix was revving up. It’s a busy time for photographers and VIPs, who flit between the two, and if anyone needed to be present at both this year, it was Eddy Cue. ‘F1’, “THE blockbuster film of 2025“, is Apple’s own production and its most expensive yet – indeed one of the most expensive films ever made, period. It was due to open in cinemas globally and press activity was peaking. My client, Bloomberg Business Week, was interested in the strategic perspective of this significantly risky new investment for Apple (a rather different direction to selling iPhones), and the crucial involvement of Formula One superstar Lewis Hamilton. Racing sequences were adapted from real-life races, F1 teams and drivers appear in the film and Lewis (a regular fixture in Monaco – see a previous portrait of him here) is a co-producer.

A walk in the park…

…is what it was meant to be. The portraits would appear in the magazine’s regular ‘A Walk With…’ feature. We’d have pretty limited time – just 45 minutes had been granted for both writer (who flew to France from LA for this interview) and photographer. Yet there would be just enough time for me to go outdoors and take portraits of Eddy and Lewis, separately and together, posed and talking.

This kind of ‘casual’ shoot takes a deceptive degree of forward planning – even in a regular location, let alone Monaco, with its unique restrictions for photographers and an international Formula One championship in progress. Yet no advance planning happened at all, because, much to my picture editor’s chagrin, Eddy’s PR team, having confirmed the date, vague location (‘Monaco’) and time of the photoshoot, then ceased to engage in any communication whatsoever. I learned only hours before where Eddy and his team were staying -the Hôtel de Paris in Monte Carlo – and that the photos would have to be taken within a 2 minute walk of it. My heart sank – the hotel, one of the most expensive in Monaco, if not in France, is located on Casino Square, a heavily police-patrolled zone (photographers beware!), and the road in front becomes part of the actual Grand Prix circuit. Crowds? Road closures? Apple People finally got in touch, saying they had found a ‘great portrait spot!’, sending a selfie that a team member had taken on the street to direct me. I realised immediately that this particular patch of tarmac would have dozens of cars driving over it at 180 miles an hour by the time of the photoshoot, when the first laps were scheduled. An emphatic “No go” was sent back, urgent requests were made, but Apple People disappeared again.

‘The good old days of slapping people are over’

I arrived early with my assistant, Chloë, to see if there were any outdoor spots nearby where I could make portraits at a pinch. There weren’t. A conversation with one of the many police officers standing outside the hotel confirmed, albeit kindly, that within a generous perimeter, I would be shut down within minutes of getting out my camera and lights. He then proceeded to expound on how sad it was that neither he nor his colleagues could slap sense into idiotic Grand Prix goers any more – now that everyone has “damn iPhones” and uploads video to social media, the good old days were over. It was my second unsatisfactory exchange with a Monégasque policeman that morning: before I’d even parked, while stationary at red traffic lights, a car behind had abruptly driven into mine with a large bang. The onlooking policeman had blown his whistle and told me gruffly that I needed to pull onto the pavement and ‘settle it myself’ with the large, wound-up -idiotic Grand Prix goer? – driver. It apparently wasn’t his remit to help me in any way whatsoever.

It seemed now that the only possibility left was to shoot inside the hotel – presuming Apple People had actioned the magazine’s request to arrange a permit for photography beforehand. Yet even getting in to look round was a challenge. The hotel’s front entrance, opening onto the racetrack, had been sealed off. At the side entrance, an accreditation badge, issued in advance, was now needed just to access the hotel lobby (a fact Apple People had apparently not thought it relevant to communicate to either photographer or writer). It didn’t help that when I’d crossed the Monaco border that morning, an irritating instance of the principality’s hand-of-God telecommunications control had blocked my phone’s mobile data – a second humble fruit became engaged to a swearword in my speech, as my main communication channels were no longer available.

Eleventh hour no-show

Determination and patience, along with an understanding hotel employee, had eventually got us emergency access badges and, thanks to instinct rather than telecommunications, we found the clutch of Apple People in the lounge. By then, I was not surprised to learn that (a fact delivered amid casual opening conversation about croissants and the heat), Lewis Hamilton wasn’t actually going to come. The writer’s facial expression was not one he would’ve liked to store in his Apple Photos. ‘A Walk With...’ was out of the window, the main premise for the article had suddenly evaporated and I knew it now would likely turn into a smaller business article at best (sure enough, it ended up ‘online only’, the lowest rung of the editorial status ladder).

As for the location for photos, “I’m sure we can do it on the terrace“, represented the sum total of preparations. I tried to keep my voice even, as I explained I would need time to set up – a minimum of 30 minutes preparation and light testing for 10-15 minutes portraits in the two set-ups my client required. Apple Eyebrows arose in mock horror, as we took the lift up to the top floor.

Red alert wind warning

The narrow terrace in full sun next to the hotel’s packed breakfast buffet wasn’t going to work, either for me, or for the hotel’s communication manager. She had been called and had somewhat ruffled feathers. While the Apple People got into “Do you know who we are?” mode, I quietly stepped away and signaled to Chloë to follow. We hopped over a floral barrier and began setting up on an empty corporate suite’s terrace next door. It had shade (I didn’t want Eddy to be blinded and squinting in the sun), nobody eating pain au chocolat and enough space for my lights. It would do. The argument behind me was gaining volume, as apparently what I was doing “could not be done“, but I left the Apple People to manage things and they seemingly did (everything has a price).

Eddy eventually arrived an hour late (or did he? An hour seems awfully precise, and he didn’t arrive wearing the dramatic cloak of a late person. I suspected strategic journalist / photographer disinformation). Over the minutes of waiting, I’d been anxiously observing the sky. Red alert weather warnings had been issued for midday, which was rapidly approaching, on account of the extremely strong wind that was due. Sure enough, the gusts was getting up to a startling strength, and even in the relatively protected enclosure of the terrace, my flash umbrella had become unusable. Chloë was even struggling to keep her feet on the floor holding a small reflector panel, and I had a brief, unpleasant vision of her sailing off into the blue.

Portraits in a flash

Eddy’s arrival, with a swirling entourage of new Apple People, was worthy of an A-list celebrity. No-one introduced themselves, and as our 45 minute slot for both portraits and the subsequent interview after me was now down to less than half an hour, I didn’t waste time asking. Within seconds, one Apple Person was fussing over Eddy’s shirt (it had clearly been taken out of a packet that morning…”OMG I think you can see the creases! You need to Photoshop them out!“); another asked why we weren’t doing the photos in the bar downstairs (“It’d be so much better; you can see the cars driving past outside!“); the loudest was clamoring “OK you’ve got 2 minutes MAX!!‘)

I could barely hear Eddy, or make myself heard, over the screeching of the Apple People, the screaming of the wind and the revving of racing cars rising from the road below. Yet fortunately he was pleasant and amenable, attentively followed my gesticulated directions, and, bizarrely but thankfully, his hair didn’t move at all, despite the alarming gale. I took a quick variety of shots on the terrace with Monaco in view, before moving swiftly to the second, context-less backdrop of the decorative wall screen alongside. I ignored a disembodied voice close to my ear, yelling “Stop! That’s enough! Done! Finish!”, as did Eddy, and I took a few last shots. As I released him, having just enough frames to send a bare minimum assignment edit to the picture desk, the same voice broke in again, less rushed….to ask if I could take a snap of her and Eddy on her iPhone, by the view? I was at a loss for words.

How many watches?

It wasn’t until I was editing the pictures that I had the time to observe a detail I’d missed. It looked as though Eddy had been wearing two (Apple?) watches, one on each wrist. Apart from confirming to me that he can’t have been late (someone who wears two watches is unlikely to be sloppy about time), I wondered why. An insider’s lack of faith in Apple products, anticipating that one will fail? A finely-attuned need in a chaotic world to feel his body balanced, for each arm to weigh exactly the same? Or a vice president’s oversized consumption of time, data and entertainment, that will not fit into one single Apple watch? It seemed a distinctly human question, after my Apple Day, and one to which, sadly, I will probably never know the answer.

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The cost of a cure – who pays?

A cure lasts 18 days – 6 mornings a week for 3 weeks – and this duration is non-negotiable. Only one of my friends (also a photographer) had ever been on a cure, and while many are aware of the concept, few have any idea of what the experience is like. Foreign friends imagined a holiday at a luxurious South of France spa and expressed total disbelief that the state pays for most of it.

Anyone who has had anything to do with French administration knows that where the state pays, there is generally a significant personal cost in terms of time and patience. This was no exception. Getting from the doctor’s surgery to my first bath of sulphurous water was a journey in itself. I couldn’t book my cure until the Social Security had authorised my request. Yet I couldn’t get this authorisation until I’d confirmed the cure dates at my chosen thermal establishment…and most of these get booked out well in advance. Are provisional places held? Of course not!

In my rush to get authorisation before the closest station to the French Riviera closed for winter, I drove to the Social Security offices in Nice to hand deliver my form – only to be told they would not accept post by hand. So I drove back to a post office and, much later, received authorisation – one day too late. I found another station in Provence that was open a little later in the year, so repeated the process, which included returning to the doctor for completion of a fresh request form in light of the station name change. After a few days, my form was returned as the doctor had forgotten to stamp the box underneath his signature. By the time that had been rectified and the form re-sent, I got a green light… just too late for the second station. Starting yet again to apply for a date in spring now instead, I had a farcical discussion with one state employee by phone to query a letter I’d received. It had asked me to post them a letter they had earlier posted to me. “But you wrote and sent it to me! Surely that means that you have it?” “Mais non, Madame, we sent it to you.”

Luxury thermal spa? Wrong door

The night before my cure began, I arrived at the studio flat that I’d booked in town, nestled among mountains that rise up from Provence to become the Alps (the Social Security doesn’t pay for accommodation, so most people stay off-site). Early the next morning, before presenting myself at the thermal station, I had an obligatory appointment with a local doctor, whom I’d arbitrarily selected from a list months before. She asked me one or two questions and then coloured in a map representing my body, ticked a few boxes on the back and told me to keep the paper with me at all times. “Apart from your shoulder, what other body parts do you want mud on?” I looked back, baffled. “Well this covers your shoulder and your back, but you can have another couple of spots, if you want. How are your knees?” I mumbled about a fractured toe and she drew a cross there on the map, and on my knees anyway. Now, apparently, I was good to go.

Situated in a valley on the dramatically-named road ‘Torrent des Eaux Chaudes‘ (literally ‘torrent of hot water’ – although I was disappointed to discover that the quiet stream alongside wasn’t either of those things), the thermal complex was built close to the site of an ancient spring of steaming hot, mineralised water (today it is piped from 800 m below). The first part of the building, modern and elegant, contained the ‘Thermal Spa’. It opened at 10.15am for a leisurely start, and treatments on the menu included Pacific or Japanese slimming massages, detox teas and couples’ sessions.

That was not where I was going. Another entrance, further up, this one without a sign, led into a much older wing – the decaying labyrinth that was the medical heart of the thermal station. No Asian inspired treatments or cups of green tea would be served here (or indeed any vittals at all, other than those that drop out of a vending machine) and the carpark was full from 7 am. It may not be a sanatorium à la ‘Magic Mountain’, but Thomas Mann‘s novel did pop into my mind a couple of times as I plunged into the institution which set the scene for my strictly timetabled life as a ‘curiste‘.

Hundreds of silent, white-clad ‘curistes’

At full capacity, up to 700 people ‘take the waters’ here. I was told to sign in 10 minutes before the first of my 4 scheduled treatments every day. Efficient personnel greeted the swarm of arrivals at the reception desk with a brusque ‘Bonjour!‘ and clean but often threadbare dressing gowns, whose sizes were coded by a colour label (I learned to request the green model, which was not only longer but also had loops for the belt. Yes, these things did start to count after a few days). Curistes then filed through changing rooms, where they stripped off all their clothes and accoutrements, put on a swimsuit, stuffed any hair they had left into a bathing hat (a good 30 to 40 years younger than the majority, I had more hair to deal with than most) and padded off to their first session.

From then on, a strange sort of choreography began. Around the wet corridors inside, white-robed, rubber-capped individuals shuffled slowly and silently around each other, going from one appointment to the next. Damp oozed from the walls, and pipes were rusting under constant attack from sulphurous water. Each person clutched an identical mint green plastic bag, issued on arrival along with a plastic cup and the all-important item of the cure: a plastic wallet containing their personalised access badge and comprehensive care card, detailing the times and locations of all treatments. These lasted no longer than 15 minutes and were tabled at times like 07.13, 07.48 and 8.11, with a different schedule every day. The clocks on the wall must be happy, I thought: there were dozens of them, and, as no-one had watches or phones (strictly forbidden), people were constantly looking up at them to check the time, rather than looking down at a device.

I was struck by the quiet (talking was not welcomed during sessions). One large gentleman from Marseille spotted a friend in a communal water bath and shouted above the sploshing: “It’s you! How are you?!” The reply, “Obviously not good, otherwise I wouldn’t be here” was quickly hushed.

Ancient medical treatment

Thermalism is certainly not new. In places blessed with hot water gushing out of the ground, we humans have been submerging ourselves in it as long as we’ve been around. The value of the particular mineral mix in the water where I took my cure had been known since ancient times, notably mentioned in passing by Pliny the Elder. I particularly enjoyed the English language version of the local tourist office webpage explaining why: “The curative properties of these hot waters are linked to their rise along the Triassic gypsiferous levels of the thrust sole of the local nappe.”

It wasn’t until 1947 that the French government considered thermalism to be social medicine worth paying for. Today, millions of euros are spent every year for 600,000 citizens to benefit from the pain relief, recovery of function and quality of life that a cure can provide, when alternative treatments to their chronic conditions have proven ineffective. The station I went to is considered small: some of the 90 thermal stations across France welcome thousands of curistes every day. For some, a cure is not a one-off experience either, as I learned one morning when discreetly applying a dab of shower gel before a post-treatment wash (the only shower option was of the mixed, communal kind, where soap, shower gel and the removal of swimsuits were forbidden. I confess that I broke more than this one rule during my cure). A beady-eyed, elderly lady next to me had spotted my indiscretion, and hissed at me that in all her 30 years as a curiste, she ‘had never known soap to be permitted‘ and I was ‘absolutely never to do it again‘. Sorry, 30 cures ?!

Jets, mud and warm rain

So, what does a cure actually involve? I can’t speak for everyone, but my own daily smorgasbord was made up of several treatments. Hot water pummelling came in various guises, from a kind of jacuzzi on steroids (I quickly learned to avoid sitting over the plughole once my time was up and the water began draining – it was all I could do to grasp the sides tightly enough to stop myself draining with it), to a communal ‘jet wash’ (my words). Here, on the supervisor’s call, dozens of curistes would file into a pool divided into stalls (worthy, if dry, for a row of hay-eating horses). Once the jets were switched on, everyone stood as best they could for a high-pressure, self-directed massage. The effectiveness of this massage depended on the stall you chose. Some of the apparently geriatric jets were quite ineffectual, whereas others could blow you from there to Nice if you weren’t prepared, which led to a somewhat undignified rush as the experienced curistes pushed past each other to be first into the pool. Sadly, the ‘Penetrating Shower’ service was to remain a mystery to me. My doctor, rightly or wrongly, hadn’t considered I would benefit from it.

Group physio exercises in a hot pool were self-explanatory, yet individual massages by a wellington-booted, plastic-clad physio in one of over 20 little rooms with warm thermal water raining down from the ceiling, take experience to accurately picture. My personal favourite was the mud session. In preparation for the hottest of all treatments (green clay is mixed with thermal water at 48°C, give or take – the precision of the temperature was less consistent than you might imagine, to sometimes yelpingly painful results -), I would strip off my swimming costume and lie down on a bench. A steaming bucket of mud would be ejected through a trapdoor (I once or twice witnessed the hairy hands that shot out of the darkness below to deliver it) and a member of staff would come in, check my ‘body map’ and unceremoniously slap fistfuls of mud on me before switching the light off and disappearing. I would often be starting to snooze when she or a colleague would burst back in, tell me to ‘Get up, stand against the wall!‘, and efficiently hose me down.

Photographer undercover

It goes without saying that photography was neither practical inside the station, nor would it have been permitted had I asked (I didn’t. As a photographer, sometimes it is simplest not to). Instead of using my camera to make the pictures you see here, I smuggled in my phone – wrapped in tissue paper with a hole cut in, for maximum discretion. Taking pictures to capture these personal memories was a haphazard exercise to say the least. In silent waiting areas, I pretended to consult my care card, while silently snapping pictures with the phone lens just peeping over the top of it.

So, did my cure cure me? The answer is: no….at least not immediately and not entirely. Yet, after the first week (when if anything I was in more pain, exhausted by the treatments and feeling increasingly sceptical), my pain levels Did start to lessen. I was astonished, too, that the mobility of my shoulder, frozen for months, seemed to be increasing. The improvements did not stop after the cure either – it was over the weeks afterwards that my shoulder improved enough for me to at last start back to work as a photographer. Perhaps the oldest, most natural cures are indeed the best…

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One of the last fishermen of his kind

Commissioned by GEO magazine as photographer for a cover feature on the cuisine of Nice, I was looking forward to this shoot. I was to photograph the work of Damien Roux, one of the last coastal fishermen of the French Riviera, aboard his pointu (the traditional type of wooden fishing boat in Provence). In an era where small-scale, natural food growing and gathering is replaced by technology-dominated farming and large-scale food production, witnessing and documenting the human activities honed over generations to bring good food from nature to plate makes for the kind of reportage I really care about. So I was hoping I hadn’t ‘missed the boat’.

Eventually, however, Damien appeared. A man of few words, he proffered an old towel and invited me to clamber down into the fishy-smelling pointu below – which had barely enough room for him, his nets and ice boxes, let alone a photographer too. I was glad that I had wrapped my camera gear in plastic and dug out my rubber boots, as I clambered up to the prow and squashed myself against the wet wood. Moorings untied, we motored out towards the sun, across a sea of glass.

No rest for man or fish

Damien doesn’t travel far, taking more or less the same route across the bay towards Cap Ferrat every morning and every evening…7 days of the week…365 days of the year. He stops where colourful floats indicate his net, drops anchor and winds in the line, to haul in fish who’ve swum into his trap. As the 150 m-long net, deep enough to reach the seabed this close to shore, cranks in, he removes debris and untangles stragglers. Then, towards the end of the line, out of the broiling water, fish flapping in their desperate fight for life, he scoops his catch into the boat. With icy cold, bare hands, he sorts through the net. The little fish are lucky, thrown back into the sea for another day; the bigger ones are put into ice boxes. Once he is done, Damien lifts anchor and slowly motors the pointu, to wind out the now empty net and lay the line again for next time.

Sea wolves and octopuses

In times past, the people of the Côte d’Azur never used to go far out to sea in search of supper. Sea urchins, anchovies and the sedentary, bony little rock fish that were the ingredients for simple fish soup, used to be plentiful along the coast. Pointu boats at rest were once part of the regular beach scenery, hauled up onto the pebbles in Cannes and Nice. Yet people ate more soup than the fish could keep up with, and numbers of rock fish have faded to near inexistence (Marseille‘s bouillabaisse fish soup has gone from a pauper’s staple to a gourmet rarity). Today, depending on the season – oh yes, there are seasons for fish, and unlike the two-legged visitors to the French Riviera, fewer arrive in summer – Damien might catch mackerel, sea bream, or, with some difficulty, sea bass. The latter, named loup de mer, ‘sea wolf’, due to their exceptional wild intelligence, swim in and out of nets at will – and won’t ever be duped by a fishing line.

Perhaps the cleverest creature that Damien found in his net was an octopus, making our outing a ‘lucky one’. He catches this rare prize only once or twice a month at best (there are very few left in the bay) and I tried not to think about a rather moving documentary I had seen a short while before about an octopus – its sensitivity, interaction with a human observer and its surprising intelligence – as he drew one into the boat. My heart leaped, as no sooner caught than it was off again, cleverly squirming out of the ice box and heading to the edge of the boat. But Damien was too quick for it, and got straight on the phone to a buyer, who arranged to take it a couple of hours later, for 30€.

Once there were 70

Over 70 pointus were still operating out of Villefranche-Sur-Mer’s port in the late 1940s. Now only Damien’s boat and one other is left. Yet, despite the decline in activity, I was surprised by how small the haul was that morning – and Damien said that sometimes he catches nothing at all. Under the cliffs of billionaire’s haven Cap Ferrat, where the price of property can exceed 200 000€ per square metre, Damien quietly relaid his net. He has had to take another job to supplement his meager fishing income – ferrying tourists from cruise ships berthed in the bay to Villefranche on day trips.

Fish don’t come fresher

Back in the harbour, Damien leapt ashore with his iceboxes and I followed him to a little lock-up, squashed in between two swanky seafront cafés. He dug out a recent treasure from the fridge, a gigantic amberjack fish of which he was justifiably proud, for an obligatory photograph. His dad, who had popped down from the village to collect the day’s catch, looked on.

The day was getting warm. Spending an extended period with fish splatter flying in close proximity is neither good for a photographer’s work (a longer lens hood would have made for cleaner optics) nor one’s general appearance. I changed out of my boots and wiped my hair but was conscious that I didn’t look or smell entirely Riviera-presentable as I made the short walk up to the village market, where most of Damien’s catch gets sold (anything left is bought by local restaurants).

Under the platanes (plane trees), a few stalls were huddled together and I quickly spotted Damien’s dad, arranging fish on ice under a parasol. There was no sign at the stall, nothing to indicate the origin of the fish, nor of their astoundingly short journey to this point of sale – short in terms of both distance and time. In a world where we are conditioned to accept food supply chains that cross the world, deny the seasons and falsify natural freshness, I wanted to shout aloud to everyone within earshot: “Do you have any idea how fresh this fish is? Are you aware of the zero miles it has travelled, of its nonexistent carbon footprint? Can you imagine anything more free-range, more organic, more natural than this?!” But it seemed unnecessary. As people quietly wandered over to the stall, and the number of fish there quickly dwindled, it looked like the locals already knew…

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Self-proclaimed anti-surrogacy feminist Olivia is a hard woman to pin down, both conceptually and practically. Her busy social media feed is an incongruous mix: snapshots of her cat / kids / flowers alternate with plentiful selfies (that demonstrated a competent use of embellishment filters) and professional photographs of her speaking into microphones at international assemblies, or meeting notables like the Pope. It had been initially difficult for either photographer or journalist to fix the time of our rendez-vous, due to the demands of her three young children, the house renovation project that was happening around her – and the added task of last minute shopping for a new dress (the editor had been quite clear that she mustn’t wear black, which was the source of some consternation to Olivia, as her wardrobe was entirely dominated by it). Given what I’d been told about her state of home chaos, it seemed that my photo brief from the British tabloid’s ‘Femail’ magazine (‘capture glamorous Olivia, lounging in her beautiful, minimalist house’) might be tricky.

On the day of the shoot, Olivia was resplendent in a figure-hugging, green dress, and the home into which I was welcomed was quiet. The builders weren’t in evidence and I met only one of her children, whom she referred to as ‘the devil’ (the two-year-old having kept her awake all the previous night). Fortunately, sleeplessness had not taken a toll on her immaculate appearance, and her husband considerately took the exuberant toddler and two dogs to play in the garden. The photo editor and I had decided it would be pragmatic to bring a white backdrop to hide any renovation chaos and to simplify a cut-out portrait afterwards, and, given evidence of both children’s felt-tip artistic talents and builders’ masonry explorations on the wall, I was glad I had it. My assistant and I took over the lounge, moving furniture to set up a clean white ‘wall’ and studio lights. Apart from the helpful and effortlessly bilingual Olivia (surrogacy is illegal in France and so Olivia’s parents had to relocate to the US to buy their baby), there was only a cat left in the room to observe proceedings… and no regular pussycat at that. Maine coons are the biggest domesticated cat breed in the world, and supposedly descended from the pet cats that Marie Antoinette shipped out of France before losing her head. This one, in any case, had a good survival instinct, keeping its paws away from the pristine white backdrop and staying clear of the photographer’s feet.

Olivia’s ambition to ban surrogacy worldwide is no small one… but then Olivia is no ‘small person’. She has spent her adult life coming to terms with bipolar disorder, and healing from the emotional damage that, she maintains, stems from being born of surrogacy. She didn’t learn that her mother was not in fact her birth mother until she discovered it herself, as a teenager, doing her own research. It wasn’t until many years later that a DNA ancestry kit helped her locate her birth siblings in the US. Yet Olivia has gone on to start her own family and take up the torch to try to prevent others from going through what she did. Speaking at illustrious gatherings like the European Parliament and the UN Commission on the Status of Women, Olivia isn’t shy to stand up for what she believes in. Surrogacy, she says, is exploitative and harmful – for both child and birth mother. Commercial surrogacy contracts can run to six figure sums: a tempting offer for a young woman in a vulnerable situation. Those who, after giving birth, regret their decision (and some do, says Olivia) can’t go back on their signed agreement. At a time when celebrity announcements of children born through a surrogate have become almost commonplace, Olivia is making enemies as well as friends – even the parents who raised her no longer speak to her since she spoke out against surrogacy.

In the UK, surrogacy is only recognised if it is altruistic, and a surrogate mother currently remains the legal parent until a parental order is eventually gained. However, the Law Commission recently recommended changes that favour parents who use surrogates, enabling them to get legal status as soon as the child is born. As a result of British media interest in the proposal, Olivia was offered a new platform on which to speak – and space on the cover of the Daily Mail newspaper.

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Making socca for a hundred years

Chez Theresa is a restaurant in the heart of Nice’s old town – although the term ‘restaurant’ may be somewhat misleading. The enormous, wood-fired oven where Antoine was working was located in a part-kitchen-part-bar, and helpings of fresh socca were being thrust unceremoniously through a hatch to waiting customers outdoors. While the names of a couple of other Niçois snacks were scrawled on a blackboard, there was little evidence of them being served. Out front, at a couple of unadorned, wooden trestle tables set up in the narrow pedestrian alley, people were munching their portions of golden pancake from paper plates – with no cutlery in sight. Socca is only ever to be eaten with fingers. Chez Theresa has been an institution in Nice since the indomitable Theresa opened her doors in 1925. Now it is one of only 3 places left in the city where socca is still made traditionally, in a wood-fired oven.

I hadn’t heard of socca until I came to the South of France and moved to the hills above Nice. There, in the cool shade of lime trees in the square of my little town, I first tasted its gooey-yet-crispy delights. Kamel tows his portable oven there twice a week to make it, and once I’d tried, I was hooked: socca became a regular fixture in my life. The dish isn’t exclusive to Nice: a close relative can be found along Italy’s Ligurian coast (‘farinata’) and variant recipes are found all over the eastern Mediterranean. Yet Nice’s own version of the pancake is unique, particularly thin and crisp, and it is the only one bearing the name ‘socca’.

Working class fuel

The geographic specificity of this dish is a testament to Nice’s own, rather individual, identity. Previously separate from the rest of the country, Nice was under the protectorate of the state of Savoy until a referendum saw it handed over to France in 1860. Even today, le pays Niçois [the Nice country] identifies neither as truly French nor even Provençal, and its cuisine is no exception. Its great range of traditional recipes were born from arid, steep land; poor soils; and hot, dry summers – along with the plants, herbs and animals that can survive there. Chickpeas and olives, socca’s main ingredients, are two prime examples. Today, the Côte d’Azur may be a magnet for wealth and leisure-seekers, but in the past, the region was notoriously poor and Niçois pride is flavored with working class, independent values. For those who look, the city’s flag portraying a red eagle watching over 3 hills can still be glimpsed flying; for those who listen, down by the harbour, in backstreets or at an OGC (the city football club) match, the dialect Nissart is still spoken. A fresh salade niçoise may be loved by visitors and locals alike, but as a culinary symbol for the people of Nice, a filling, cheap snack traditionally sold by street vendors to fuel a working day is a better fit.

Military value of chickpeas?

Legends about the origin of socca are diverse – and seem tenuous. One says the cooking method was invented by Roman soldiers who roasted chickpea flour on a shield; others say the recipe was discovered in 1543 during the Siege of Nice. Short of ammunition, the Niçois supposedly mixed hot oil with chickpea soup and poured it down off the walls onto the heads of the Turkish invaders below. When the defenders licked their fingers, they found they were on to something….

It has, however, been reliably documented that at the beginning of the second millennium BC, Phoenician sailors exported chickpeas from the Levant all around the region, firmly introducing them into the Mediterranean diet. 17th century records describe people in Nice pouring a thin layer of liquid chickpea dough onto a super-hot copper dish and cooking it quickly in a very hot oven. When Napoleon brought floods of workers from Italy to the southeast coast of France, to replenish his navy and revitalize sea defences, the work of dockers and sailors was fueled by socca. By the early 1900s, the dish had gained widespread popularity among Niçois civilians too, as a nourishing and inexpensive street food. Cooked on site, fishermen filled up on it before setting out to sea; later in the day it was the worker’s alternative to a lunch box. Today, it is often enjoyed with rosé wine for a leisurely apéritif, but socca remains cheap – 3€ a portion at Chez Theresa.

Kings of the socca kitchen

When I arrived at Chez Theresa earlier this year, mid-morning (on assignment for a GEO magazine feature: ‘The Guardians of Niçois Cuisine’), all was quiet. As owner Jean-Luc Mekersi unashamedly explained, there really wasn’t much to photograph during the preparation of socca, the only ingredients being chickpea flour, olive oil, water and salt. Sitting at the bar, clad in a ‘Socca Addict’ T-shirt, he explained the basics over a leisurely coffee. “We make 60 litres of socca mix a day and the prep consists simply of weighing and mixing up the basic ingredients, and letting the liquid rest for a few hours every morning, before whisking and cooking it.”

Once the 12 o’clock cannon boomed from castle hill (the daily signal to Niçois to stop work and get some lunch since 1863), the vibe changed, however. Socca chef Antoine took up his position by the oven, ready for action. Jean-Luc may be a former rugby player and in good health, but he admitted he doesn’t have the strength and agility to make twenty to thirty successive, perfect socca pans, once the lunchtime orders start flooding in. Many kinds of wood-fire cooking require smouldering embers, but socca’s brief sojourn in the oven is hot and flaming. Wood from hornbeam and beech trees are used as they burn the hottest, and piles of logs from the woodpile alongside are constantly replaced on each side of the oven to speed up the cooking time and give the socca its blackened, breathed-on-by-a-dragon appearance. It is an art to feed this kind of wood fire and maintain a constant oven temperature of 280°C – 300°C. I would argue that it is also an art, as a photographer unfamiliar with the process, to take pictures without personal injury.

Raw socca mix is poured into a heavy, hot, iron and copper-bottomed pan that is over 1m in diameter as Antoine thrusts it into the oven. The olive oil used to grease the pan is mixed with sunflower oil, as, at these kinds of temperatures, pure olive oil would burst into flame. The pan must be frequently moved and turned during its brief, 10-minute cooking time. Once it is whipped back out, Jean-Luc takes over, cutting the socca into portions, with the very same knife that once belonged to Theresa. He roughly scrapes them out onto paper plates, after which his father, hovering at his side, gets liberal with the black pepper shaker for a final serving touch.

“Socca must be crispy and lightly blackened on the outside, but soft and soggy in the middle” said Antoine, the sweat beading on his brow. “It takes some concentration to do that – miss your focus and the batch is quickly ruined. It can be especially tough in summer too. We don’t have air con and it gets pretty warm working next to this oven.” No joke. The only surprise to me was that Antoine is so into socca that on his days off, he cooks it at home.

Hot transport by bike

Robert has been a fixture at Chez Theresa for 38 years, earning him a certain degree of local notoriety. Robert’s job is to take oven-hot pans of socca to the market 300m away, where Jean-Luc’s wife Sophie sells takeaway socca, as fast as is humanly possible. To do this, instead of driving it in a van (the streets are too narrow for vehicles), he uses a special adapted scooter-bike, with a cone-shaped warming oven on the back. He is quite a spectacle, and takes his speed mandate seriously. Those familiar with the sight of Robert as he frantically careens through the old town’s maze of pedestrian alleys, step out of his way; those who don’t, learn fast. He certainly wasn’t slowing down for the benefit of a photographer (although after lunch, was very happy to show me his press clippings – a collection of portraits and mentions worthy of a silver screen star). There was a long line when I went to photograph the stall, and the bell that Sophie rang to announce Robert’s arrival had almost the same effect on the hungry queue that a red carpet entrance might have on Cannes film festival photographers, further up the coast…

Uncertain future for socca

It may be said in French that someone “has a brain as big as a chickpea” (a derogatory simile for a person with a limited intellect), but socca is far from being a stupid choice of snack. Chickpeas pack a punch for their size. Protein-rich, they are also a good source of vitamins, fibre and minerals, a one-cup serving providing more than 60% of the daily recommended value of manganese, copper and folate alone. And this is not all. Chickpeas and their flour have been used to treat a variety of ills, from worm infestations and diarrhoea, to preventing sexual impotence in men (making last century’s Niçois hot socca-consuming fishermen a virile bunch?)

Sadly, though, the future may not be entirely rosy for socca lovers, as the international supply of chickpeas is under threat. Once upon a time, chickpeas were widely grown on the hills above Nice, along with lentils and other cereals. Today, however, very little land is given over to chickpea growing in France, and socca lovers may soon regret that. Climate change and the current war in Ukraine are the main culprits of the current shortage. Ukraine produced 40,000 tonnes of the little beige legume in 2020, but was not able to sow its entire harvest last year because of the war; and Russia, whose exports represent 25% of the global market, is under sanctions. As the price of chickpea flour steadily rises, socca may not remain the widespread poor man’s snack that it once was.

Perfect snack for a hungry photographer

Back at Chez Theresa, the tables started to clear and Jean-Luc’s father clearly thought the photographer deserved a break, slipping over to my place at the bar with a bunch of grapes. “They’re from my garden” he said, conspiratorially, with not a little hint of Niçois pride in his voice. “The hills above Nice make for the best grapes I know. They’re small, but the sweetest of them all”. I tasted one (indeed, it was very sweet) before enquiring about the portion of socca that I’d requested for a photograph. It seemed I hadn’t reminded him a moment too soon. Antoine had taken the last pan out of the oven and only two portions remained. Seeing the last ray of direct sunshine moving fast out of the alley, I placed one beside a glass of rosé wine, and took pictures as quickly as I could. This last golden piece of socca wasn’t going to waste. By the time I put my camera down and picked it up, the heat had left it. But the socca magic was not gone. Gooey, yet perfectly crispy, this was one well-earned, delicious, worker’s snack.

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“Best-known Tropézienne sandal makers on the planet”

It transpires that the Rondini sandal atelier has been an institution in Saint-Tropez since it was founded in 1927. While it may not have invented the classic Tropézienne sandal, the Rondini family has certainly taken the shoe to another level, cladding the feet of Kate Moss, Claudia Schiffer and Inès de la Fressange for starters. According to an enthusiastic local paper, the Rondinis are “among the best known Tropézienne sandal makers on the planet” (the writer does not specify how many there are). This mythical, South of France fashion staple – a simple sandal; flat; all leather; with four or five leather straps – is still very much in vogue, proven by the fact that my photos had been commissioned by Monocle magazine, a litmus paper of refined fashion and design lifestyle trends.

Building on the past

If it were a person, Saint-Tropez would not be an early riser, and the town was still very quiet when I arrived for my rendez-vous at 10 am. The boutique/workshop – small, gold letters on the window, elegantly state ‘Rondini 1927’ – used to snuggle up to an épicerie (grocery). Yet today, food shops in the pedestrian streets off the iconic Place des Lices have nearly all been squeezed out to make way for high end clothing and design stores like Louis Vuitton, Jimmy Choo, Gucci and Valentino.

Alain Rondini, grandson of the original shoemaker who arrived from Tuscany a century ago, came out to welcome me. The shop, workshops and storage rooms that house Rondini’s 24 employees and the entire production process of a whole lot of sandals, were once his grandparents’ home. As Alain showed me the place from top to bottom, his memories overlaid the sandal making process. In a ground floor workshop, leather was being cut (“this was once the kitchen“); in an adjoining room, leather soles were being plunged into a vat of water (“my father built this extension into the garden, over the well“). A small back garden had been preserved, but it was unkempt. “We all used to have gardens, but how are you supposed to look after them today? If I were to prune a fruit tree, I wouldn’t be allowed a fire to burn the clippings – but I can’t get down the packed pedestrian street with armfuls of branches!” I made a portrait of Alain in the attic, among sweet-smelling rolls of leather. A slightly kitsch statue of Saint Tropez himself looked benevolently down from the mantlepiece, allegedly responsible (at least in part) for the house’s good fortune.

Artisan sandal making

It was a far cry from a factory. The spiral staircase connecting the 4 floors boasted its original tomettes – small, hexagonal red floor tiles typical of old South of France houses – yet they were uneven, and the stairs were so narrow that it was impossible for two people to pass. Some small machines are used, but the Rondini’s sandal making process is labour-intensive. Each one of the 16,000 pairs of sandals made here annually is brought into being by several pairs of hands.

In the jovial ambiance of the workshop, most of the artisans rotate between sandal making tasks, and each one seemed happy to explain to a curious photographer what they were doing that day. The soles and upper straps are cut from French leather – mostly cow hides; some deerskin – that have been tanned with oak bark for 12 months (Alain loyally works with the same Alsace tannery that his grandad used). Soles are then scraped, soaked overnight in water (to make the leather supple enough to get a needle in) and dried before the sandals are assembled. Tripping up and down the stairs, I photographed Imène cutting strips from a snakeskin (real, python); Alain’s nephew Xavier hammering uppers onto soles, and glamourous Manuella stitching straps in the sewing room.

Sandales sur mesure…and a rare croissant

The Rondinis only sell their sandals in the boutique, or through their website, so if you want to try a few pairs on, you’ll have to travel to Saint-Tropez. These flat, leather sandals hold their own, price-wise. Many models and colours are on offer, but a pair of classic, 4-strapped brown Tropéziennes will set you back 165€, and customers who prefer python or crocodile skin to plain old cow can pay double that. Anyone with oddly-shaped feet, or who considers themselves special, can use the workshop’s tailor-made service: sur mesure sandals, perfect for a discerning Saint-Tropez elite.

While as a photographer in the South of France, I spend a lot of time in flat sandals, my purchasing power is not in the elite range. Nonetheless, I was delighted to take home a genuine Rondini souvenir of my own: a nubuck bracelet. Alain’s daughter, who works for Hermès in Paris, makes them on the side to sell / be given away by her dad, in the family shop. She may have been raised amid Saint-Tropez’s luxury brand culture, but it seems she still has the ancestral call of artisans in her blood.

I left with something else too: a top local food tip. Alain instructed me to look between the high-end clothing stores a few doors up the street for a little patisserie, one of the last of its kind to sell a Provence speciality I’d never tried before: a croissant aux pignons [a pine nut-covered biscuit in the shape of a croissant]. The minimalism of the window display and the shop’s interior design, with more wall space devoted to mirrors and Saint-Tropez flags than cake racks, had more in common with its new clothing boutique neighbours than its Provençal patisserie origins. Yet when I told the baker that Mr Rondini had sent me for something specific, he winked conspiratorially, ducked into the kitchen and came back with the goods. My snack was 5 x the price of a regular croissant, but its taste and quality were irreproachable. What else to expect in Saint-Tropez?

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