A trip down memory lane with French photographer Raymond Depardon
Raymond Depardon, one of France's most well-known photographers and filmmakers, is being celebrated with a book and a special exhibition in Paris. His latest film Les Années Déclic – about the earliest days of his career – was shown at the Cannes Film Festival in May.
The French photographer was just 18 years old in 1960 when he decided to buy an Italian Rumi scooter to cross Paris, never without his Rolleiflex camera around his neck.
He witnessed the boom years of French cinema and captured shots of Brigitte Bardot on the set of Vie Privée (A Very Private Affair), to Jean-Luc Godard and Jean Seberg at the premiere of the 1960 film À Bout de Souffle (Breathless).
Depardon also covered news events in France, such as a conference given by Martin Luther King when he was in Paris in 1966.
He founded the Gamma agency in 1966, before joining Magnum Photos.
Since becoming a film director in 1974, he has since enjoyed an international career alternating between photography and cinema, both documentary and fiction.
Exhibition at Galerie Cinéma
Les Années Déclic (The Declic Years) is a book of around one hundred photographs spanning Depardon's iconic work throughout the 1960s, 70s and 80s in France, which has just been published.
The name also lends itself to his latest film which was shown at the Cannes Film Festival in May, as well as an exhibition of 30 prints at the Galerie Cinéma in the Marais district in Paris.
Read more on RFI English
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