“I love…” How would you complete that sentence?
The only rules in this case are that it cannot be 1) someone you know or 2) something that someone else has already put. I tackled members of France’s defence services with this question for a portrait series shot on site at the 6th Salon des Métiers de la Défense et de la Sécurité, in Juan-les-Pins, near Cannes. One by one, French policemen and women, firemen, soldiers and even one of Monaco’s Royal Guards, struggled gamely to put chalk to slate in a quiet corner of the showground.
Several unwittingly followed in Mohamed’s footsteps with “J’aime la liberté“, before I reminded them of Rule 2. A suprising echo of the French state’s cry of ‘Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité‘ for a personal declaration?
Thanks to everyone for applying themselves. And a special thank you to members of the Police Nationale’s forensics team. Their patience was infinite as my subjects and I stepped repeatedly in and out of their cordoned-off demonstration scène de crime in order to get to my makeshift ‘portrait corner’.
