As a photographer and creative director,  I am always looking to take beautiful architecture or fashion photos.

For the first time in my life I am going to show you photos that I have never published that are neither fashion or architectural or even beautiful to me.

I was living in london when I heard about the arrival of covid-19, I lost my girlfriend the same week & thanks to my work I was able to get paid remotely.  So I decided to leave london and go back home in Provence, South of France.

Once arrived in france, my relatives told me that going out was forbidden due to covid, I had to sign a sheet of paper to go shopping etc. at the risk of paying a 135€ fine if I was out without any real reason.

After a very silent week at home, I called two friends I've known since I was 5 years old to go sleep in the forest for a night.

We left around 4:00 pm, each one with his backpack, each one with his bottle of water, no tent because our idea was to tell the policemen that we were going to make the essential purchases, which would not be credible with a tent in our back obviously.

Once arrived in this forest (photo 1 and 2), we've found an incredible freedom. I then made a wooden hut (photo 3) which still took me 1 hour to take the heat of the fire & avoid dying with the wind.

Around 11:00 pm, we were so happy, we drank whiskey in front of a very warm fire, listening to Lionel Richie and Bill Withers thanks to my friend's speaker.

Around 00h00, we began to notice the lack of wood. which meant that we were going to finish the night without fire, it was impossible.

We decided to take our things & to go to seek wood a little farther because we obviously took the  closest wood to us (please don't make that mistake)

After having walked 30 minutes we notice that we lost our way because we did not found our main camp in the middle of the forest & the battery of the telephone was over (apparently spotify consumes a lot of battery)

So I had to take about 10 pictures to see with the flash where we were... (photo 4)

After 30 minutes of walking we've arrived in front of an apparently abandoned house, we open the door by removing the cobwebs & saw a beauti

ful country house, probably bought by rich Americans, the cliché thing you know.

We decided to sleep in front of the wrought iron chimney, and in the morning the sun wokes us up. We woke up in this beautiful house, my friend had plumbing skills, so he fixed their water while me & my other friend cleaned the house.

While cleaning it my friend discovered some jazz and classical music vinyls (picture 5). We took one each & we promised each other that we would never sell them no matter what the price, because the story will always be more valuable.

When we came back in the city, we had for a few seconds a choking due to the pollution of the first cars, it was very interesting actually...

We also met policemen who didn't even stop us (thanks again).
On the way back I took the best possible shower & I offered some rosemary that I picked in the forest to my mother so that she could make me some tea.

Sometimes the ugliest photos in technical aspect (composition, depth of field etc.) are the ones that age best. I can't wait to tell this story to my children one day and giving them my mamiya that I was able to acquire the next month.