La Mémoire Vive: An Intimate View of France

I can still remember the first time I rode through the narrow roads that wind through the cow peppered hills towards the tiny village of Masmoulineix to visit my husband's grandmother. Passing fields of glimmering sunflowers. Swerving past a rusty Renault that knew the country roads inside and out, driving straight towards us way too fast. Looking up at the cottony clouds that seemed to touch the Earth. Inhaling fresh country air. Hypnotized by magnificently worn down stone houses, one by one by one. So this was the French countryside... may I never wake up! And so I realized that day I was gifted an opportunity I once only dreamt about. It's a memory I return to often, a bunch of vivid stills that play in slow motion. Do you recall formative experiences in a similar way? A Mémoire Vive. Absolutely.

Trips to France that followed have me trying to capture the feeling, the dream, to somehow preserve all the storied moments and richness of French life, history and culture through photographs.

La Mémoire Vive: An Intimate View of France takes you with me - on a stroll through an old village's back streets, on to wide open country roads, to Paris and beyond. It is the first book in what is becoming a series...