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Superyachts on the Drawing Board

Sitting on a sunny café terrace, if you overheard people next to you discussing Wally, Linda Lou and Queen M, you’d be forgiven for thinking they were talking about old friends graced with slightly unusual nicknames. However, I was on assignment in Monaco, just about to meet leading designer of superyachts Espen Øeino, and my companions (members of Centurion magazine’s editorial team) were excitedly discussing the yachts they could spot from our table.

Truffle Hunters

Its all in the nose, I discovered, when I spent the day with truffle hunters Max and Jean-Claude. A well-trained dog and noticing the smallest clues in the landscape, vegetation and insect behaviour all help a hunter locate a truffle’s whereabouts. But once the digging starts, it is the scent that leads a trufficulteur to his trophy. And boy, does a truffle smell strong.

Provence is not as well-known as the Périgord region for its truffles, but actually 80% of French production of the black truffle (Tuber melanosporum) comes from southeast France.

Le Chocolatier

The French know a thing or two about food and chocolate is no exception. France might have its share of big brands and chocolate factories, but independent chocolatiers also thrive. Thousands of qualified specialists across the country develop recipes and make their own chocolate products for sale. ‘Entre mes Chocolats’ in Vence is the only chocolate shop in southeast France to have a working kitchen fully open to the shop.

Taking Time

Precision of time is a watchmaker’s raison d’être. So I was suprised to be told by watchmaker Florian Wulleman during my recent production of his audio portrait, that a minute is not necessarily a minute. And that we are better off relaxing and not clockwatching at all.

I spent the day alongside Florian in his atelier in Vence, a medieval hilltop town between the Côte d’Azur and the French Alps. Working alone, he repairs and sells watches and clocks, most of which have been in service for some time.

Ultra’s World

Salvador Dali’s muse. One of Andy Warhol’s chosen ‘superstars’. Ultra Violet, now well into her seventies, still has a steely gaze and the considerable charisma that you might expect of her.

I took her portrait at the apartment in Nice, where Ultra spends time when not in her New York home. In one lounge, another photographer was lost in concentration shooting her latest installation piece, ‘Self Portrait’. Tradesmen were rushing to and fro. Ultra was alone at the centre of it all, calm and regal.

I Love…

“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 made at an annual defense and security recruitment fair 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.