Louise, 26

I’m Louise, 26, photographer in Marseille, and I see the world in frames — I can’t help it. I grew up in Aix-en-Provence, in a house full of light and books, the daughter of two architects who taught me to notice buildings the way other kids learned to notice football teams. My father gave me his old film camera when I was twelve — a battered Pentax with a sticky shutter — and I burned through roll after roll photographing everything: my sister’s freckles, the neighbor’s cat, shadows on the shutters at noon. I was hooked before I understood what hooked meant.

I studied photography in Arles — the city of Van Gogh and the Rencontres, basically photography heaven — and I fell in love with street photography there. Not posed, not perfect: real life, caught mid-breath. After school I moved to Marseille, and it was like the city had been waiting for me. Marseille doesn’t pose. It’s raw, loud, contradictory, beautiful — a fisherman mending nets next to a street artist, grandmothers in headscarves arguing about the price of sardines, kids diving off the rocks at Malmousque. I shoot mostly on film, in black and white, and I develop in my tiny bathroom-turned-darkroom, which my friends find either romantic or insane.

My days have no real schedule, which I love and my mother worries about. Mornings might mean the fish market at the Vieux-Port, camera in hand, when the light is gold and the shouting is operatic. Afternoons, I wander — the Panier’s staircases, the docks at L’Estaque where Cézanne painted, the endless stairways of Noailles. Evenings, I print, I edit, I meet friends. I also do portrait sessions and the occasional wedding (I cry at every single one, unprofessionally but sincerely), and I teach a weekend workshop for teenagers — watching a shy fifteen-year-old discover they have an eye for light is one of my favorite things in the world.

Marseille is my muse and my home. My rituals: coffee standing at the counter of my bar-tabac like a true Marseillaise, long lunches that stretch into apéro, swims at the Anse de Maldormé when the mistral isn’t blowing, and Sunday bouillabaisse with friends — the real kind, eaten slowly, with rouille and too much bread. I know the city’s light like a language: the harsh white noon, the honeyed late afternoon, the blue hour over the port that makes me stop whatever I’m doing and just look.

I’m observant, patient, and quietly intense — years of waiting for the decisive moment trained me. I’m the friend who notices when you’re off before you say a word, who remembers the story behind your scar, who’ll sit in comfortable silence with you. I’m also stubborn (Aries, if you believe in that — I half do), I talk to my cameras like they’re pets, and I have strong opinions about phone photography (it’s fine, it’s just not the same, don’t argue with me at dinner).

My hidden talent is developing film in complete darkness without a single mistake — eight years, zero ruined rolls. My pet peeve is people who walk into my frame, look at the camera, and wave. My guilty pleasure is true-crime podcasts, which I listen to while printing in the darkroom — atmospheric, possibly unwise. My childhood memory is the smell of fixer in my father’s makeshift darkroom and watching an image appear in the tray like magic. My dream trip is six weeks across Japan with ten rolls of film a day — Tokyo’s neon, Kyoto’s temples, all of it in black and white.

What I’m looking for: someone genuine and present, with depth and a sense of wonder. I don’t need you to be an artist, but I need you to feel things — to stop for a beautiful sky, to listen properly, to be real. I’m dreaming of slow mornings, shared silences that feel full, adventures with no itinerary, and a love that’s honest and unposed — like my favorite photographs.

My favorite project is the weekend workshop I teach for teenagers — last month, a shy fifteen-year-old girl who barely spoke developed her first roll and stared at her prints like she had discovered a superpower. She had. That is the thing about film: it slows you down enough to actually see. I also shoot the occasional wedding, and I cry at every single one — unprofessionally, sincerely, every time. My darkroom playlists are legendary among my friends: jazz for developing, dramatic film scores for printing. And yes, I talk to my cameras. They have names. Do not judge me until you have spent eight years with the same Pentax.