The song of the great photographers

While Lee Miller’s biopic has just been released in France, a little exploration into the memory of our popular music reminds us of the major importance of photographer Robert Doisneau.

Buying a Nikon, being attached to the colors of Kodachrome slides, it’s quite an era. Paul Simon’s song dates from 1973, and this adaptation by Michel Delpech, from 1979.

The release on French screens of the biopic dedicated to photographer Lee Miller this week invited us to explore the trace left by photography – I mean film photography – in our collective memory.

And it’s funny, we have a bunch of songs from around ten years, not much more. This is the time when many people are passionate about photography – including singers, very seriously or with a little derision. Here is Serge Gainsbourg in 1969, Pierre Perret in 1976, Michèle Mercier in 1970.

In the second episode of These songs that make the news, broadcast this weekend, you hear excerpts from:

Michel Delpech, Kodachrome, 1979

Serge Gainsbourg, Under the sun exactly, 1969

Pierre Perret, The Photo, 1976

Michèle Mercier, Six eight, 1970

Dani, My little photographer, 1969

Gauvain Sers, The Roofs of Paris, 2021

David McNeil, Photos of Doisneau, 1978

Isabelle Aubret, A photo signed Doisneau, 2016

Renaud, Robin, 1988

Julien Clerc, Damn, 1990

Catherine Deneuve, Malcolm MacLaren, Paris Paris, 1994

MC Solaar, The Fifth Season, 1998

Never, It’s time, 2003

Mika, Lost Kisses, 2015

Vincent Delerm, Martin Parr, 2008

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