Dieppe Promenade
My connection to Dieppe began in the early 2000s, when my British in-laws bought a seafront flat. Back then, and up until we moved to the UK in 2007, Dieppe was little more than an occasional stopover—a place for family visits, pleasant enough for a weekend or a few spring or summer days.
It wasn’t until we returned to France in 2014 that I began to look at the town through a photographer’s eye—particularly its seafront. That’s where my gaze would often linger. On the shingle beach or along the promenade, I enjoyed observing and framing these quiet, everyday scenes, always set against the infinite turquoise backdrop of the Channel.
Dieppe has a distinctive light. Often softened by sea mist, at times sharply etched by bright sunlight that illuminates—and even sculpts—silhouettes and textures. Whenever that light appeared, it sparked my desire to take street and documentary photography, effortlessly filling my memory cards.
Dieppe lacks the polish of grand seaside resorts. Its shingle beach doesn’t have the softness of the sandy shores found further west. But it’s a lively, down-to-earth beach, free from dense crowds, where locals, day-trippers, friends and weekend families cross paths. Paradoxically, its lack of sophistication gives it a certain charm. From that simplicity emerged a number of minimalist compositions.
When the family flat was sold in 2019, my visits to Dieppe came to an end. What remains now are the images I captured—souvenirs woven into the memory of places that have shaped my life. The photographs presented here form a kind of visual journal, a record of those years spent quietly observing the beach at Dieppe, sometimes from its promenade.
