France - as seen from the sea

PHILIP Plisson has been photographing the sea since his grandmother donated her old camera to him while he was on holiday in Brittany, aged nine.

Now, 55 years later, he is close to completing his biggest project so far, travelling 7,000km by boat from the Belgian to the Italian border to capture the sheer scale and diversity of the French coast.

Mr Plisson started his adventure in April 2009 from the northernmost tip of the Pas-de-Calais. He has so far spent more than 200 days at sea, whenever the weather allows, cruising along at little more than walking pace and taking in the most minute detail through thousands of photographs. He hopes to finish the expedition this spring.

"This was the biggest, most difficult and most risky challenge of my life as a marine photographer," he says. "I’ve been a professional photographer for more than 35 years, but until now I’d never taken the time out to take a look at all of France from the sea."

Brought up near Orléans, Mr Plisson’s love of the sea started at theage of four, on a family holiday at La Trinité-sur-Mer (Morbihan), where his father taught him to sail. He loved the Brittany coast so much that he moved there permanently, setting up a picture agency in 1974 that now employs 40 people and specialises in marine photography.

It is a subject that has caught the attention of many painters and photographers over the years. Mr Plisson’s journey around France was partly inspired by the work of Joseph Vernet, the 18th-century painter who was commissioned by
Louis XV to undertake a major series on the ports around France.

Artists aside, Mr Plisson says it has taken the French a long time to develop their interest in the coast. "Louis XIV was the only king who travelled to see all the seas that border France," he says. "Louis XV only saw the sea once in his life, when he visited Cherbourg and Honfleur, aged 39. Most of their contemporaries knew nothing about the coast and did not care much about it."

That started to change in the late 18th and 19th centuries, but the major boom in seaside holidays came with the introduction of paid time off work, congés payés, in the 1920s and 1930s. Today, however, Mr Plisson says the French coast remains under-used outside the peak summer holidays. What shocked him the most during his expedition was seeing so many quiet towns and empty homes.

"With the exception of mid-July to mid-August, 80 per cent of the apartments, villas and houses that I saw along the coast had their shutters closed," he says. "All of the marinas were full, some with waiting lists of several months. There are 45,000 pleasure boats licensed in France and each one is used for an average of just 38 hours a year.

"You would think that France was an exceptionally rich country, to be able to afford so many properties by the sea but to use them so little. But these properties don’t all belong to the well-off. People will get themselves into debt to satisfy their need to be by the sea for a few weeks."

What also struck him on his travels was the relative lack of industrial activity on the coast – another big missed opportunity, he says.

"France’s geographical position should have made it easy for it to become Europe’s number one country for port activity, maritime transport and naval construction. But it is clear that we are very far behind Belgium, Holland, the UK, Italy and Spain. Today, ships from the world over pass by France without stopping."

The final stretch of Mr Plisson’s journey this spring will take in the Côte d’Azur and Corsica. The albums are being published gradually across six volumes and he hopes they will help people better appreciate the sea.

"We’re so lucky to live in a country that has thousands of kilometres of coastline and very different seas; there’s such a great diversity," he says.

The first volume of La France vue de la mer, from the Belgian border to Mont Saint Michel, is published by Editions du Chêne, ISBN 2812301090, and can be ordered online at www.plisson.com
The other five editions will be published gradually between this spring and March 2012.