An iconic joy in the stands during the victorious final of the Blues at the 2018 World Cup in Russia, a beer drunk dry in the locker room of the Stade Toulousain after his victory in the final of the Top 14… President Emmanuel Macron has always liked to rub shoulders with athletes. From Friday, France hosts the Rugby World Cup. As tradition dictates, the President of the Republic went to the base camp of the XV of France to give him his support, in Rueil-Malmaison, on Monday. A “pool” of journalists was present to cover the visit of the Head of State.
A photo of this trip caught the eye of 20 minutes. That of the photographer from Agence France-Presse, Ludovic Marine, which covers the news of the Presidency of the Republic. He explains the making-of of this image.
What do we see in the picture?
For Ludovic Marin, this photo where we see “the president talking to the players of the France team” represents “a special moment”, after Emmanuel Macron crossed the field and greeted the players one by one. At the invitation of coach Fabien Galthié, the president and the players form a closed circle so that the head of state delivers “a few words of encouragement”. The “pool” of journalists being outside the circle, it was necessary to find an original framework to illustrate this moment of exchange in a vacuum. The AFP photographer tells us that he sometimes makes “framings on the ground” to get a “perspective effect” which reinforces the development of the subject. To the remark that we make to him on the contrast between the muscular calves and the subjects in the background of the image, he concedes that there is a “quite powerful” side in the photo which he “pleasantly liked”.
What is the shooting context?
This image was produced as part of a “pool” of journalists. He explains to us that it is a representative selection of “the different professions of journalism: text, photo, video and radio” which works for all the media. The goal is to avoid “the excess number of cameras, photographers or poles”. A practice that Emmanuel Macron’s presidency has “considerably generalized” during the Head of State’s travels. For Ludovic Marin, it is not the “pool” that is binding here but the “arrangement of the subjects”, because there are necessarily “foreground shots from behind”. The sound engineers must be behind Fabien Galthié, Emmanuel Macron and Antoine Dupont, the captain of the XV of France, the photo and the video remaining in front of the three subjects. After testing the hypothesis of shooting “from above”, between the heads and necks, and “from below”, between the legs, he thinks that reading the image from below is more “interesting” because “stronger”. Ludovic Marin would like to remind us that he is a “journalist at theFrance Media Agency » and not « the official photographer of the Elysée » when we evoke the management of the distance with the president whom he meets regularly in his work.
The more anecdote
After a moment of reflection and a follow-up on the link between the president and sport, the journalist explains to us that Emmanuel Macron likes and practices physical activity, according to the photos that “his official photographer”, Soazig de la Moissonniere, broadcast on the networks. In 2023 and 2024, France being the organizer of the Rugby World Cup and the Olympic Games, he adds that “sport, politics and communication” will go “good together” because “the whole world” will look in the direction of the hexagon. And the President of the Republic has “understood” that he will be “a full player” in this period.