Michel Desjoyaux

A word about the work

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Portrait of Michel Desjoyaux produced in Port-la-Fôret (Finistère, Brittany, France) in 2008.

I had to produce a whole series of images for a cover and inside feature of the Journal du Nautisme. It was just before the departure of the Vendée Globe race. Michel was both really nice and not very generous to my lens. I got the feeling that it wasn’t a good moment, that he didn’t like posing and was doing it without much conviction. To start with I used the background to place him within his world, but I wasn’t very pleased. I didn’t have anything very powerful. Not long after, when the journalist was interviewing him, I took some close-ups and saw his amazing eyes. I asked him for five extra minutes and asked him to close his eyes and then open them slowly while thinking intensely about what he was about to go through in the coming weeks. I had to take two shots, I was sure of myself. I had my photo.

Jean-Denis’s choice

A whole life in this face. The sea spray, the sun and cold, the life of a sailor. And in his eyes, the ocean. You don’t have to be a fan of Michel Desjoyaux, one of the greatest French sailors, to like this photo; you don’t even have to know who he is. It is a portrait of a sailor.