L’Hôtel du Cap-Eden-Roc, near Antibes, is one of the most exclusive hotels in the South of France. As photographer on portrait assignment for Bunte magazine, I recently had the pleasure of meeting and working with its owner, Maia Oetker. In residence since 1969, and still with an active role in the hotel’s direction, Madame Oetker has come to be known as the grande dame of luxury hotels.

The man whose portrait I took recently in Nice is on a mission to save the world. From his South of France observatory, Dr Patrick Michel is part of an international team working to protect Planet Earth from being obliterated by an asteroid.

As the world pauses, and half the planet is confined with Covid19, international sports matches are a distant memory. Many photographers are struggling with inactivity; for athletes I can imagine staying isolated indoors is especially tough. In recent months, just before the Iockdown, I made portraits of three stars in a single sport: rugby.

A roasting summer sun. An eye-popping colour palette. An opera singer diva. A ticking clock. This cover portrait shoot in Aix-en-Provence was a feisty one.

The assignment was for Finland’s number one women’s magazine, Kotiliesi. I’d been chosen as photographer to take the portrait of world-famous Finnish opera singer Karita Mattila during her South of France tour. In 2001, the New York Times pronounced the soprano “the best singer of the year” and, nearly 20 years later, she doesn’t seem to have lost it. Karita’s performance at the Aix Festival was being applauded by international press as a “late-career renaissance”.

You may not have heard of Keith Chapman, but the chances are that you’ve come across his creations. Known and loved by millions worldwide (admittedly, many of them under 5 years old), the characters from Chapman’s TV series have become international cultural icons in their own right. Yes, Bob the Builder and Paw Patrol are among the best known children’s animated TV shows of all time, and the man I was sent to photograph by German weekly business magazine Wirtschaftswoche, invented them both.

Not all the environmental portraits I take are set under the blue skies and palm trees of a quintessential French Riviera. France’s number one construction trade magazine, Paris-based ‘Le Moniteur du BTP’, regularly sends me as assignment photographer to take pictures of the industry’s regional leading lights in & around Nice, Grasse and Cannes. Instead of setting these portraits in recognisable South of France locations, I generally shoot them in factories and on building sites.

Back in the day, they were Finland’s premier power couple. He was a Formula One champion; she was a television presenter. Today they may be divorced, the “Flying Finn” Mikka Häkkinen is no longer a racing car driver and Erja’s TV days are over, but the press has not forgotten them. Very glossy ‘Gloria’, Finland’s number one fashion magazine, recently sent me as photographer to Monaco to shoot a lifestyle feature about Erja. It was a rather glamorous day-in-the-life piece, that required a lot of people, tasty (and not so tasty) morsels and champagne in its making…