Arles has been on my bucket list for years and my publisher Kehrer Verlag offered me the opportunity for a book signing. I was not planning to go this year having already travelled to Photo London in May and hoping to attend Paris Photo in November. Two trips to France in one year seemed a bit much, but my friend Jamie Johnson explained that the two fairs are quite different. 

Paris Photo is huge with top galleries selling work for thousands of dollars and it’s a madhouse. Les Recontres d’Arles is a meeting of photographers which started 55 years ago, and is all about drinking wine and meeting people and enjoying the art. Since drinking wine and meeting new artful friends is very on brand for me, Jamie successfully sold me on attending Arles for my first time.

Arles is a beautiful town in the south of France with a rich history spanning from the Romans to Vincent van Gogh. Each year beginning in July the town becomes a second home to photographers, gallerists, and photo enthusiasts. There are photo exhibits, book fairs, lectures and many chances to meet and mingle. The fair officially extends through the fall, but the first week is when most people attend.

The layout of the festival allows for people to wander along the beautiful stone streets and discover work everywhere. Retail shops rent out their space for small pop-up galleries. Larger galleries take over historic spaces, and some artists create impromptu exhibits in the street.

There is also a celebration of photography on the walls and streets throughout the town in the form of postcards, stickers and wheat paste posters. The apparent king of wheat paste for the week was Ken Kodak. He did a great job promoting himself throughout town – his bold work was everywhere. I found him on Instagram and sent a message but did not hear back.

Since I was fortunate to book a room in a high traffic area, I brought four black-and-white Xerox posters which I planned to hang with (removable) painter’s tape, but once I saw all the wheat paste around town I thought I’d try to take it to the next level. 

After my second night I decided to hit the street with my posters to see if I could find someone to help me wheat paste. I found a group of very friendly photography students pasting their work, led by their teacher. I helped hang one of his prints and as he finished, he slapped his name below and I realized I was with the one and only – Ken Kodak!

They gave me a quick wheat paste tutorial and one of his students graciously allowed me to use her supplies. Now I’m hooked.

I also brought 4” x 6″ postcards promoting my latest book “CASINOLAND – tired of winning” And purchased removable putty to attach the cards throughout town.

Both wheat pasting and putty are non-destructive. Wheat paste can be removed by warm water and putty can be pulled off by hand. This should not be confused with spray paint / graffiti which is much harder to deal with. My goal was to have my work artfully placed, but I did see people recklessly attaching their work on top of other people’s work and these artists should be called out for their lack of nuance (see below).

Days are filled looking at art and nights drinking wine or pastis and talking about photography. 

In the evenings, certain cafés and public spaces can get pretty packed. If you’re lucky enough to have a table with extra seats, you never know who will drop by and join you. I had the chance to finally meet Jeff Dunas (founder and director of the Palm Springs Photo Festival). I mentioned going to Palm Springs for spring break ages ago when Sonny Bono was mayor – always an amusing reference.

We happened to be talking about archiving 35mm film work and he did not disappoint when he shared that he has multiple Mac stations with assistants scanning decades of work and has devised a workflow so that his machines can always be running. From Jeff: “8 Mac’s and 8 scanners translates into no wasted time for one person to scan every frame from rolls of film to about 50megs per scan per hour. If you want 100 Megs per scan you’d need 16 stations. If you have four stations the assistant has about 29 minutes of doing nothing each hour” Hearing about scanning excited and exhausted me simultaneously. He also hosts the PSPF podcast and I highly recommend the Ralph Gibson episode.

I got to hang out with Michael Grecco who seemed to know everybody and has a huge body of work documenting the music scene over decades. He also works with photographers and attorneys and has spoken before Congress regarding artists and copyrights.

His wife, Elizabeth Waterman created a book from a body of work titled “MONEYGAME” through a publisher based in Lisbon (XYZ). I had met the publishers at a Los Angeles Center Photography (LACP) exposure session / portfolio review last year. They do interesting work and have a program where artists go to Lisbon to develop the book together – which sounds pretty good to me.

I also had the chance to meet Boris Eldagsen, the photographer who won and refused the Sony World Photography Award in 2023 with his now infamous AI image. He’s a vocal champion of AI worldwide and a prolific creator of AI video.

Originally from East Berlin, Michael Dressel is currently a resident of Los Angeles and came to Arles to sign and promote his latest book. “The End is Near, Here”. As a German, he has an interesting take on the current state of affairs in America – comparing it to Berlin in 1937. Michael’s publisher (Hartmann Books) was featured at one of at least 3 book fairs happening at Arles.

My book signing with Kehrer Verlag was a success – however one of the main problems with book signings is that you want to maximize surface area for books which unfortunately leaves no room for wine. Roger Ballen dropped by to sign one of his books. I had always assumed he was South African, but learned he was born in New York and ended up in Johannesburg after an epic road trip in the early 1970’s inspired by Joseph Conrad’s “Heart of Darkness”.

Jamie Johnson sold out of copies when she did her signing for “Growing Up Travelling” in Arles, but felt Paris Photo was almost too big for an artist to stand out. It sure felt great to have old and new friends drop by for my signing.

Walking around, I stumbled upon a pop-up gallery of African work curated by Olivier Sultan with Galerie Art-Z from Paris. Sultan has exhibited in Arles before and his curation gave me the opportunity to view work I don’t normally come across in Southern California.

One of the exhibits I was most excited to check out was a large retrospective of the Sicilian photographer Letizia Battaglia. There was about a 30 minute wait to get into her show which featured moving work on political and social issues.

From Wikipedia:

“Battaglia took up photojournalism after her divorce in 1971, while raising three daughters. She picked up a camera when she found that she could better sell her articles if they were accompanied by photographs and slowly discovered a passion for photography.”

“Librairie” in French translates to bookstore, and it was at one of several in town that I discovered a term for one of my favorite genres – “journal intime”. A quick Google search reveals that this may not be a common term, but the concept of an intimate visual diary tends to be work that speaks to me. Arles also is home to the National School Supérieure de la Photographie – a photography school with an impressive library of photobooks open to the public.

Apparently there’s a fine line between hoarding and collecting, but if it’s art, I declare it to be a collection. 

Overall I would definitely recommend making a pilgrimage to Arles if you have the opportunity. Every morning, I walked out of my apartment and was greeted by a photographer with a vintage camera creating portraits for €20. Throughout the day, there was no shortage of great new work to see and people to meet.

For years, I’ve had friends trying to convince me to go to Burning Man. It’s been described as a Mecca for creative types and free spirits. After spending a week in Arles amongst my people, perhaps this will be my Burning Man.