Frame 09 · Portrait

Open Field

Portraits made outside in the wind, from late afternoon until the light gives out. No reflectors, no stylist, only the weather.

Client: Personal series
Role: Photography and printing
Location: Provence, France
Year: 2025

Three windy weeks in the hills above Aix, with friends who agreed to stand in the mistral until the light ran out.

A woman with windswept auburn hair and a cream blouse turns her face to the sun against a pale blue sky. — Frame 09 · 80mm · f/5.6 · 1/500 s · ISO 100
Mistral, 4 p.m.

A woman in a leather jacket at dusk, her dark hair blown across her face, a soft orange horizon behind her. — Frame 10 · 85mm · f/1.4 · 1/250 s · ISO 400
Dusk, the last gust.

A young man in glasses sits on a rocky hillside in a black jacket, looking away under an overcast sky. — Frame 11 · 135mm · f/2 · 1/640 s · ISO 200
Waiting for the weather.

A young woman in a white blouse at sunset, her hair blown across her face, the whole frame soft and golden. — Frame 12 · 85mm · f/1.4 · 1/2 s · ISO 100
Half a second, handheld, the sun behind her.

The story

The mistral blows down the Rhône valley for days at a time and nobody in Provence likes it. I started this series because I wanted to photograph the one thing you cannot direct: hair, cloth and grass moving however the wind decides.

There is no lighting here beyond the sun and the sky. I shot between four in the afternoon and the last usable minute, mostly wide open, and kept only the frames where the wind and the face agreed for a moment. The golden frame at the end is half a second long, handheld, and should not work. It is my favourite.

Portrait

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