Hollande chooses garden for photo
Official picture is a departure from tradition as president says he did not want to be seen "shut in" at Elysée Palace
A QUICK half-hour photo session in the gardens at the Elysée Palace and France has the first official portrait of President François Hollande.
A picture destined for the country's 36,000 mairies - although they are not obliged to hang it - Raymond Depardon's work shows Hollande strolling in the garden.
It was quickly called a portrait of "President Normal" and is a departure from previous pictures which have had the president dominating the frame and, for the majority, being photographed in the palace library.
Seen in the shade of a tree and with the neatly-manicured lawns of the garden filling the shot, Hollande chose the gardens - like Jacques Chirac - because he did not want to be "photographed shut-in in his palace".
In contrast to President Sarkozy, who had neatly arranged French and European flags beside him, Hollande has two enormous banners over Elysée buildings in the background - with one critic saying the French flag looked more like the Dutch flag.
Depardon, the founder of Gamma agency and a member of Magnum Photo, used three cameras for the job, photographing the president as he walked across the grass. He told journalists from Inrocks magazine he used "first a Leica, then a digital camera and finally my old 1962 Rolleiflex, which often brings me luck. It was a photo taken with this, in 6x6 format, that was chosen."
The Leica, he said, had already been used to photograph General de Gaulle, Brigitte Bardot, Marlon Brando and Edith Piaf.
The picture has already been mocked with mock-ups on the web after it was leaked through Twitter. One has a herd of elephants in the background, another has former Sarkozy minister Nadine Morano driving a 4x4 at him, another has a pastiche of Manet's Dejeuner sur l'herbe while another has Chirac filling the foreground and Hollande as his supporter..
The picture is being printed by the Journal Officiel and will go on sale to the public through the Documentation Française at €9.50. The photo of President Sarkozy in the library is still on sale, at €8.
