March 2016

Hello everyone,

Four weeks and one day

Seeing this leap year month of February unsuccessfully try to have as many days as the other months, I can?t escape from thinking about the fate of those born on a February 29: Do they celebrate their birthday once every four years only ? And besides, each February, what happens to people whose salary or pension is paid automatically on the 30 of the month? Do they get paid only on the following month?

So, February has lasted four weeks and one day, all of them very busy.

Week 1: A short trip to Australia: Banana Split taken over by our friend Arnaud and his family, who presently retrace the New Zealand path we followed in January, we flew to Melbourne, and went to photograph a site that has always attracted us, the "Twelve Apostles" and the Great Ocean Road, along which Francette was finally able to photograph in nature lovely koalas. It was the time of the Chinese New Year, and the sons of heaven were innumerable on all sites ; but how beautiful were these landscapes, especially under a cloudy sky. Then we flew to Perth for a quick visit to beautiful Rottnest Island and its lovely little quokka and then a trip to Margaret River?s vineyards and virtual surfing on famous "Wave Rock" ... a 2000 drive in three days, Australia is so vast!

Week 2: Our ?Airport days?. To return to Paris we flew Perth-Melbourne-Auckland-Papeete-Los Angeles-Paris... almost 35 hours in the air, and we lost track of time, especially as we left Auckland on Thursday 10, and reached Papeete on Wednesday! Still we were able to spend two days in Papeete, for some plreasant meetings, to organize future trips, and to deliver to the local TV channel, TNTV, our film about the Caribbean : they have been for many years broadcasting all our films, and the Tahitian audience seems to enjoy them). And we relished a last poisson cru and once again photographed, as always in awe, Papeete?s marketplace.

Week 3: Upon arrival in Paris, I hopped on a train to visit my son Manea in Lille and to shoot a series of presentations for numerous retrospective programs broadcast on Melody TV during the coming weeks; back to Paris, I joined our friend Laurent Bignolas on his boat moored on the banks of the Seine for a program for the channel France O. My son Teiki, who has just completed his engineering in biology studies at a Supbiotech, told us about his plans, a master, a PHD ... We also met our interlocutors at Gallimard and Warner Home Video, well aware of the incredible opportunity that is ours to have found in these two large companies that have published us for a quarter century, charming people who accompany us faithfully and in complete freedom in our projects ; soon to come: a photo album "Stopovers in Polynesia" and a small set of three films : Caribbean, Polynesian, Indian Ocean, 23 years after our very successful first set of three VHS cassettes "Once Upon an Island."