(Paris) “Within a quarter of an hour, everything was burning”: the archives of the famous French photographer Raymond Depardon narrowly escaped a fire at the beginning of August in his house, thanks to the firefighters and the presence of mind of a neighbour, he told AFP on Friday.
Posted at 11:21 a.m.
“In the attic are stored the photos of my whole life”, explained Raymond Depardon, who keeps more than a million negatives and “300 albums of 100 contact sheets” (the developed version of the negatives, which allows a photographer to choose a photo from a series).
The start of the fire was caused by lightning which fell on the roof of this house in the Paris region on the night of August 4 to 5, in the absence of Raymond Depardon, 80 years old in July.
“The firefighters arrived very quickly, and the neighbor had the presence of mind to tell them that there were photos and that water should not be used,” continued Raymond Depardon.
According to him, the firefighters used dry ice to put out the fire, which was taken care of very early.
“Apart from a few photos”, the pictures did not suffer any damage. “But the firefighters told me: ‘Within a quarter of an hour, everything was burning'”, continued the photographer, adding, with a smile in his voice, that he now intended to invest in a lightning rod.
The fire still caused significant damage to the roof and the office in the attic of the house, according to images published by the photographer on Instagram, accompanied by thanks to the firefighters.
Photographer, documentary filmmaker, co-founder of the Gamma photographic agency before becoming one of the great figures of the Magnum agency, Raymond Depardon is the author of a monumental body of work.
In his photos and films, he has approached the rural world, war, people’s daily life or politics, with among others the documentary A campaign party in 1974, on the presidential campaign of Valéry Giscard d’Estaing.
He is currently preparing a photo book on the desert, another subject he has frequently dealt with in his work, particularly in Algeria.