“For the first time in my 35 years of career, I am on a story 3 weeks late!” And François Lochon bursts into laughter. It’s one of the many features of my character: even in the worst of circumstances, he finds a way to laugh like a kid.

“Let’s be serious. To submit a story late, for me today, it’s not serious, I work for the future. And, it’s quite an enormous privilege to be able to observe such a catastrophe with retrospect, with time. For the first time, I was not forced, no commission, no boss, and enough money to work the way I felt like.” That said, François Lochon is not the kind of person to spend three years, three months or three weeks on a subject. He spent three days.

“What really impressed me was to see for miles and miles, villages destroyed where there are practically no more inhabitants. A surrealist calm. A frightening solitude. Here and there, some engines, some nostalgic Japanese looking for an object, a souvenir of their life and that’s all…”

“What has also impressed me were the boats, these dinghies, these sea carriers, and even huge cargo freighters stranded sometimes, over ten or even a hundred meters away from the sea. It’s there where you feel the power of nature!”

“I didn’t know Japan very well… But there we are in a different world, strange, inhuman, but extraordinarily calm…”

His first trip to Japan was in 1979, where he produed for Gamma – already – a magazine about the auto industry. He returned in September 1986 with Pope John Paul II with whom he “covered” numerous voyages, and even last Sunday May 1st 2011 on the beatification by the Holy Father at Saint Peter’s in the Vatican.

Today, François Lochon is the head of Gamma-Rapho, but he’s still –before anything?- a photo reporter eager to be where “the wind of the History blows”. This born provocateur has also broken a unwritten rule that photographers who become heads of photo agencies stop shooting features. In his case, it’s the other way around: becoming the boss has made him want to do features.

“And being hungry, simply put! I even tried whale meat… It’s horrible”.

Extraordinary, that I can say!

Michel Puech