Defined as a crewed yacht that is at least 24 metres long (the length of a tennis court), a superyacht comes with a price tag of over a million Euros per metre. Just filling up the fuel tank of the biggest boats can cost 200 000 €. While a private jet might be seen as a justifiable business expense (time being a valuable asset to Very Important People), a superyacht can’t be couched as anything other than pure indulgence, however imaginative one’s accountant. Yet the market is currently very healthy indeed. Last year, twice as many superyachts were sold globally compared to 5 years ago, and the French Riviera is a good place to buy one.

Lavender is often seen as the quintessential symbol of Provence. Every summer, visitors flock to the South of France to see lavender fields, generating a thriving tourist trade around them. However there are still hidden areas of Provence where lavender growers are left entirely in peace. Last summer, I was chosen as photographer to join Stern magazine’s writer making a travel reportage about off-the-beaten-track lavender growing in France. The assignment involved excessive heat, mud, espionage, getting lost, getting high and pushing a van. Life as an assignment photographer is rarely dull.

Provence has long been associated with art. Cézanne, Renoir, Chagall, Picasso and Matisse are among the many painters who have been drawn to the bright Mediterranean colours, the light and the agreeable climate of the South of France (photographers, I can attest, also appreciate these qualities…). But does a homegrown arts scene thrive on the French Riviera today, or does it depend on the legacy of its former glory? A writer from German magazine, Stern, came recently to investigate the current art scene in Nice for a travel feature, and I, photographer, was happy to join in his two day art immersion.

Think of Monaco and you’re more likely to think of Formula One and champagne than murder mysteries. However, in May this year, the richest woman in Monaco, Hélène Pastor, was gunned down in nearby Nice. The prime suspect in arranging her murder is her son-in-law and the suspected motive was a potent mix of money and social rejection. Eyes across the world briefly turned to Monaco, including those of German news magazine Der Spiegel. I joined two reporters to put together a feature about Monaco’s social culture, the ‘breeding ground’ for this crime.

Wolves were once hunted to extinction in France. However, over the last ten years, a French wolf population has been firmly re-established, initially in Le Parc du Mercantour – the national park that straddles the mountainous border between France and Italy. Today, firmly protected in law, wolves are threatening the existence of another rare breed in France: traditional sheep herders. 20,000 sheep have been killed by wolves in France in the last 5 years.

I photographed 3 museums, 3 restaurants, the royal palace and a cactus wonderland. I traipsed down countless steps into the bowels of the earth to admire stalactites. I hiked in the summer heat along a coastal footpath. I got tangled in a throng of cameras at the cathedral, photographing tourists who were photographing wedding guests who were photographing the just-married couple who were being photographed by their photographer. All this and more for the New York Times 36 Hours in Monaco travel guide….