Salvador Dali’s muse. One of Andy Warhol’s chosen ‘superstars’. Ultra Violet, now well into her seventies, still has a steely gaze and the considerable charisma that you might expect of her.

I took her portrait at the apartment in Nice, where Ultra spends time when not in her New York home. In one lounge, another photographer was lost in concentration shooting her latest installation piece, ‘Self Portrait’. Tradesmen were rushing to and fro. Ultra was alone at the centre of it all, calm and regal.

“I love…” How would you complete that sentence? The only rules in this case are that it cannot be 1) someone you know or 2) something that someone else has already put.

I tackled members of France’s defence services with this question for a portrait series made at an annual defense and security recruitment fair near Cannes. One by one, French policemen and women, firemen, soldiers and even one of Monaco’s Royal Guards, struggled gamely to put chalk to slate in a quiet corner of the showground.