80 years of "Nice-Matin": press photographers, the damned of the "out of the bag"

"Do you know what the word photography means?" The question hangs in the air, giving the listener time to use their rudimentary Greek: "Uh... Writing light?" Philippe Arnassan nods. "Exactly. A press photographer is someone who tells a story by sculpting light. It's a profession in its own right."

A necessary clarification: Nice-Matin photographers are journalists first and foremost. Even those who, like Raoul Liboj, a legend at the Stade du Ray, were "very uncomfortable writing."

"He was an extravagant character," recalls Frantz Bouton, deputy head of the photo department. "When I knew him, 36 years ago, he was still working with a Rolleiflex 6x6 (1) ! He was a big mouth and a great professional, the only one who could afford to arrive at the newspaper wearing a Mickey Mouse cap without the boss making a comment." A master of the living image, like Gilbert Pressenda, Roland Gal, Gilbert Casties, Raph Gatti and so many others who, for forty years, juggled the same constraints.

"We were always running"

"Obviously, we worked with film," explains Philippe Arnassan, a former photographer in Saint-Raphaël. "We had to manage three parameters: a limited number of shots, a development time that was difficult to compress, and the obligation to transmit our images to the printing center in Nice."

There was no question, then, of multiplying the views on a report. "With rolls of 12, 24 or 36 exposures, and fifteen to twenty meetings per day, we took eight to ten photos maximum per subject," he explains. "It was an exhausting pace; we were constantly running. When we got back to the agency, we went to the lab, dried our films at full speed, printed the black and white proofs, then slipped them into the "out of bag" for Nice."

This brown paper envelope gave nightmares to all the professionals at Nice-Matin . Depending on the geographical location of the agencies, more or less distant from the headquarters, the departure times varied. Some envelopes were entrusted to the SNCF, others to road hauliers. In Corsica, you couldn't miss the planes taking off from Ajaccio, Bastia, and Calvi for the Côte d'Azur capital.

"It was the best school," assures Frantz Bouton. "It taught you to work quickly and get to the point. Sometimes, you had to do three reports, in three different locations, in less than sixty minutes. You had to be efficient... and not make a mistake when preparing your camera. Until the end of the 1990s, the majority of the newspaper's pages were printed in black and white. Color film was only used exceptionally. Woe betide anyone who underestimated the value of a report that ended up on the front page!"

"Some people developed films with sock juice."

All the "out-of-bags" arrived at the photo lab on the Grenoble road.

"I started there in 1989," emphasizes Frantz Bouton. "We also developed the "films" sent by Nice professionals and correspondents. The negatives were positioned on a light table, where the department heads made their selections. We then took care of the prints. A lot of correction work was sometimes necessary. In some offices, journalists developed the films with sock juice and baths at varying temperatures. Our job was to make it all publishable."

This system continued until the mid-nineties.

"The ability to scan documents was a first step forward," notes Philippe Arnassan. "Of course, we had a Belin (2) that allowed us to transmit photos in black and white. But the result was mediocre. We were happy with it for national news pages, but it was frustrating to see our images degraded. Scanning, on the other hand, allowed us to preserve the quality of the original file. In three clicks, it was in the system! And no more fear of missing the train."

The digital revolution

This progress heralded a true revolution: digital photography. At the turn of the century, Nice-Matin 's image hunters were all equipped with Canon T30 cameras. Handling was difficult. Photographers complained, in particular, of excessively long shutter release times. "But these inconveniences were quickly corrected ," emphasizes Frantz Bouton. "Everyone appreciated the comfort provided by this new technology."

No more film to develop; the old labs are eliminated. For the first time, it is possible to check the image on the camera's screen – and to redo it immediately if it is deemed perfectible. Photography enters the era of instantaneity, at the same time as the Internet is weaving its web.

"The only downside," observes François Vignola, head of the photography department, "is that digital has led to a certain relaxation. Some of our younger colleagues are less rigorous about framing and technical quality, convinced that we can 'make up for lost time' in post-production. They take multiple shots because they have lost the habit of thinking before pressing. Sometimes, because of this, we waste almost as much time as in the days of film! A shame..."

More significantly, professionals now find themselves competing with several million amateur photographers, smartphones in hand, on the lookout for the slightest event to post on their social networks.

"That's our challenge for the future," smiles François Vignola. "To prove that current photography—the kind that shows, the kind that speaks to the gut as well as the mind—is not within everyone's reach." And to continue, eighty years later, to tell stories by sculpting light.

1. This twin-lens reflex camera, produced in Germany from 1929, was the iconic camera for press photographers until the 1970s. It was manufactured until the late 1990s. 2. The Belinograph, named after its inventor Édouard Belin, is a device for the remote transmission of photographs by telephone circuit or radio. Invented in 1913, it was used for over 80 years.