Documentary & Artistic Wedding Photographer · French Riviera & Provence
Wedding Photographer
I photograph the day as reportage, without interrupting what is happening, and I tell it in the order it took place.
A train brushing a stone staircase. A father rereading his speech in a corridor, certain he is alone. The light tipping over all at once as the sun drops behind a hill.
I come from press photography, and I never really left it. Nobody replays anything for the camera, on the Riviera, in Provence or in Auvergne, and that is what gives the images their truthfulness years later.
Since 1992, and a press training
I started in press agencies, at Gamma and then at Vandystadt. You learn one thing there that serves you for life: the scene does not repeat itself, you have to be in the right place before it happens. That is exactly what a wedding asks for.
How a day runs
The reportage is counted in days, without an hourly tally. I take one wedding a day and I stay available from the beginning to the end of what you have planned. The delivery schedule is set in the quote and then written into the contract.
Three territories, three ways of working
On the French Riviera, the light arrives twice: directly, then thrown back by the sea. The contrast hardens, faces suffer for it through the middle of the day, and the ground decides the rest. Between the corniches where nothing is flat and the bays where the terrain turns horizontal, the hour counts as much as the place. May, June and September remain the most comfortable months; July and August are beautiful, but hot and very crowded.
In Provence, the light first crosses the hills, the trees and the vines before it touches stone. It arrives filtered, slower. The inland estates offer enough different spaces for a day to change setting several times without anyone moving.
In the Auvergne, the volcanic relief steers the roads as much as the light. A break in the cloud transforms a landscape in a few minutes, and you have to be ready when it comes. I spend about two weeks a month there, with no calendar fixed in advance, and I adjust my movements to the weddings booked across the two regions.
Where to meet me
I meet couples by appointment at any of my offices, from Marseille to Monaco and Paris, or at their home. Around the Cannes office, within twenty minutes, sits one of the highest concentrations of wedding venues in Europe, between the seafront and the hills.
Weddings outside France are arranged case by case.
A couple travelling from far away often comes through Paris, where I worked for fifteen years between the press and the fashion studios: a session in the capital and the wedding on the coast are planned together, with the same eye.
Two communes come up most often in my enquiries: Cannes, for the hills of the hinterland more than the Croisette, and Saint-Tropez, where Pampelonne bay faces east and sets the hour of the couple session.
Frequently asked questions
How is the length of a reportage counted? In days, without an hourly tally. I take one wedding a day and I stay available from the beginning to the end of what you have planned.
When are the photographs delivered? The delivery schedule is set in the quote, then written into the contract. It depends on the season and on the size of the reportage, which makes a single figure published on a website unreliable.
Are albums part of the service? They are, printed on fine art papers. The format, the paper and the final selection are chosen after the gallery is delivered, once you have seen the images.
Where can we meet? I meet couples by appointment at any of my offices, from Marseille to Monaco and Paris, or at their home. The Cannes office is the starting point for most of the travel along the coast.
Which area is covered? The French Riviera from Menton to Saint-Tropez, Provence, and the Auvergne for part of the year. Weddings outside France are arranged case by case.
Tell me about your day, and we will look together at how it photographs.
Visual Heritage
Exceptional Locations & Reportages
Venues of the French Riviera photographed in real conditions, with what each one imposes in light, access and timing. The hour counts there as much as the place.
Villa Ephrussi de Rothschild
Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat, a peninsula surrounded by water on three sides, where you choose the aspect of the ceremony by the hour.
Hôtel du Cap-Eden-Roc
Antibes, between the ramparts, the old town and the Cap, where midday light calls for built shade.
Château Saint-Georges
Grasse, above the plain, where the morning mist filters the first hours and the light stays soft longer than on the shore.
Areas covered
Where I work
Each page below carries the ground conditions of its own commune: which way the bays face, the hour its light becomes usable, and the venues I already know there.
French Riviera, Var and Provence
- Aix-en-Provence, shade built into the town, and Sainte-Victoire closing the horizon behind the ceremony
- Antibes, a walled old town and a cape of umbrella pines, two territories in one commune
- Beaulieu-sur-Mer, the Petite Afrique microclimate, still workable in winter and early spring
- Beausoleil, the heights where the whole Principality sits in frame, ten minutes above the Rock
- Cannes, the office on Rue Meynadier, and the inland hills rather than the Croisette
- Cap-d'Ail, a public coastal path, the way down to the water here outside the private beaches
- Draguignan, the old town and the vines minutes apart, joined by winding roads
- Èze, four hundred and twenty-seven metres of drop between the pedestrian village and the sea
- Flayosc, the light crosses the hills before it reaches the stone of the village
- Fréjus, a Roman naval base and a cloister that still works at two in the afternoon
- French Riviera, from Menton to Saint-Raphaël, three kinds of ground and one light
- Grasse, three hundred metres up, where the morning light lasts and August stays bearable
- Grimaud, four kilometres and seven centuries between the hilltop village and Port-Grimaud
- Hyères, three kinds of ground in one day, from the town to the Almanarre and Giens
- Lorgues, the ceremony in the village, the reception in the vines, and the drive between
- Marseille, a mistral that arrives at three, and white limestone lighting faces from below
- Menton, botanical gardens that stay usable at two in the afternoon in July
- Monaco, a Rock open only to Monegasque and Alpes-Maritimes vehicles, and symbolic ceremonies that open every venue
- Mouans-Sartoux, a museum of concrete art in a village of ten thousand people
- Mougins, the eighteen thousand square metres of terraces at Le Park, a quarter of an hour from the sea
- Nice, an old town crossed faster on foot than by car
- Opio, the olive groves and golf of the Grasse country, where the day slows down on its own
- Ramatuelle, from the village to the vines, then Pampelonne, where the horizon simplifies everything
- Roquebrune-Cap-Martin, three altitudes, the oldest keep in France and a thousand-year-old olive tree
- Roquefort-les-Pins, private estates in pine woods, where the light stays filtered all day
- Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat, the Villa Ephrussi and its nine gardens, on a peninsula with sea on three sides
- Saint-Paul-de-Vence, the painters' village, workable early in the morning or after six
- Saint-Raphaël, the town where Lawrence Banahan lives and works, and the Estérel turning orange at dusk
- Saint-Tropez, Pampelonne bay faces east, so the sun sets behind the vines
- Sainte-Maxime, the far side of the gulf, where the sun sets on the water
- Toulon, the largest natural harbour in the Mediterranean, seen from Mont Faron
- Vallauris, the potters' upper village, and Golfe-Juan below it
- Villefranche-sur-Mer, the Rue Obscure, a thirteenth-century covered passage under the old town
Regions and themed pages
- Elopements, the legal marriage at home, the ceremony here, and the hour entirely yours
- Lavender weddings and couple sessions, a three-week flowering whose window is set at booking, not three weeks out
- Paris, fifteen years of press and fashion studios, and the corners the guidebooks leave out
- Provence, five distinct territories, from the pays d'Aix to the calanques of Marseille
- Var, a coast and a hinterland an hour apart, and a choice that governs the whole day
- Wedding Venues, what an estate asks of the photographer, before it is a setting
Collaboration
Your day, photographed as it unfolds
Available for your wedding on the French Riviera, in Provence, and worldwide. I offer a preliminary exchange to understand your vision, your wishes, and the unique rhythm of your day.
Documentary wedding photographer, in the profession since 1992