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Happy snapper

19th January 2007 by Helena Leave a Comment  

Here is a question for all you Francophiles: Can you name the person voted France’s most popular photographer in two separate polls? Henri Cartier Bresson, perhaps? Jacques Henri Lartigue? Robert Capa? Wrong, wrong, wrong.

The answer is David Hamilton, an Englishman. Who he, you may well ask. Well, if you have ever eaten at Club 55 on Pampelonne Beach, for my money the finest beach bar in the world, you may have noticed a rather distinguished old gentleman in the corner in a linen suit and a panama hat. This is Hamilton, who moved to St Tropez when Bardot was at the height of her fame and stayed ever since. (He winters in Paris, but doesn’t everybody?)

Hamilton is famous for his rather fuzzy, soft-focus pictures of young girls in various states of undress. His posters and calendars have adorned a thousand bedroom walls. His favourite models are thin, pale girls, many of whom he finds in Scandinavia. He wouldn’t like me, despite being half-Swedish I’m too dark and too old.

In North America and even Britain, in fact probably just about everywhere apart from France, Hamilton has become something of a hate figure. His work, say his critics, reeks of paedophilia, modern times’ most hated crime, but two new editions of his photographs have just been published.

Personally I’m amazed the French love him so much, if he were a book he’d be a Mills & Boon. My favourite is Henri Cartier Bresson. I once met him, he was related to my uncle. It was in a restaurant in Rome and my aunt (just for a change) was trying to make me eat something I didn’t like. “Why is it adults are always forcing children to eat what they don’t want?” he asked. A truly great man, and his photos weren’t bad either.

Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2007


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Helena Frith Powell was born in Sweden to a Swedish mother and Italian father, but grew up mainly in England. She is the author of eleven books, translated into several languages including Chinese and Russian. She wrote the French Mistress column The Sunday Times about life in France for several years. She is a regular contributor to the Daily Mail, Mail on Sunday, The Times, Daily Telegraph, Tatler Magazine and Harper’s Bazaar.

Helena has been the editor of four magazines, including M Magazine, a supplement for the Abu Dhabi-based National Newspaper and FIVE, a high-end fashion glossy, also published in Abu Dhabi. Helena was also editor-in-chief of 360 Life, a quarterly glossy magazine published with the Sports 360 Newspaper in Dubai, part of the Chalhoub Group.

Helena contributes regularly to UK-based newspapers and magazines and holds a Masters in Creative Writing from the University of Cambridge. She is working on a thriller set in Sweden as well as a novel about the relationship between Virginia Woolf and Katherine Mansfield called Sense of an Echo.

In 2022 her short story The Japanese Gardener came second in the Fish Publishing Short Story Prize. One of her stories was also shortlisted for the Bridport Short Story Prize. When she’s not writing, she works as a headhunter for the media and entertainment industry for the Sucherman Group. 

Helena, who was educated at Durham University, lives in the Languedoc region of France with her husband Rupert and their three children.

Bibliography

More France Please, we’re British; Gibson Square 2004

Two Lipsticks and a Lover 2005; Gibson Square (hardback)

All You Need to be Impossibly French; (US version of above) Penguin 2006

Two Lipsticks and a Lover; Arrow Books (paperback) 2007

Ciao Bella Gibson Square; (hardback) 2006

Ciao Bella Gibson Square; (paperback) 2007

So Chic! (French version of Two Lipsticks) Leduc Editions 2008 (also translated into Chinese, Russian and Thai)

More, More France; Gibson Square 2009

To Hell in High Heels; Arrow Books 2009 (also translated into Polish)

The Viva Mayr Diet; Harper Collins 2009

Love in a Warm Climate; Gibson Square 2011

The Ex-Factor; Gibson Square 2013

Smart Women Don’t Get Wrinkles; Gibson Square 2016

The Arnolfini Marriage; Amazon Kindle December 2016

Smart Women Don’t Get Wrinkles (paperback); Gibson Square spring 2018

The Longest Night; Gibson Square spring 2019

 

 

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