LACANAU BEACH 
Text from Thomas Humery

Every year in summertime, surfers and nature lovers settle down temporary in Lacanau Océan, an holiday hot spot near Bordeaux, France.
On this long and large stripe of sand beated by the Atlantic, people seek for a “back to nature” feeling, organizing their holidays with and for the Ocean and trying by this to avoid any kind of social order.
Three years in the row, François Cavelier went up and down the beach to portray vacationers and investigate their personal and individualistic holidays statement. By this, he shows how a light social structure still remain, connecting people to each other. The photographer as an beach outsider draw also links between people and take part of that social structure by asking them to pose.
With Lacanau Beach, François also give us a commentary about this very strong french mythology which is the paid holidays (les congés payés) established in 1936 and seems to paraphrase this emblematic Roland Barthes’s quotation : ” People don’t claim passion itself but the image of it “.