For her latest book, The Sea Around Us, Marie Deteneuille spent a single day with Nuage Lepage, accompanied by only her camera, against the unscripted backdrop of nature.
Intimacy is often a delicate sentiment, protected by a sense of time and place: shared experiences, earned trust, vulnerability in safety. Yet, as French photographer Marie Deteneuille’s latest book, The Sea Around Us, explores, intimacy can also emerge in an instant, summoned by the presence of a camera “within the fleeting dynamic of a photographer-model relationship.” Against the humbling backdrop of the Normandy coastline, Deteneuille spent a day with model Nuage Lepage both to document and embody this unique connection that unfolds through the lens.
Deteneuille has long viewed photography as more than just a tool for image-making – it is a means of forging connection, with a single click. “In recent years, I’ve spent time photographing people I don’t know in my home, in a very stripped-back setting,” she explains, “the idea that an encounter can be driven purely by the act of creating an image fascinates me.” And so, the concept of her “experiment” was born: to spend a single day with Nuage, accompanied by only her camera, against the unscripted backdrop of nature.
For Deteneuille, the shoot was an opportunity to collaborate with Lepage, whom she first discovered in a magazine during her studies and later met on a job. “I admired her soft, honest gaze – her beauty reminds me of Renaissance paintings,” Deteneuille reflects, “there’s a balance in the way she presents herself as she is while also embodying a sense of mystery.” For Lepage, the experience was equally meaningful – “where the relationship isn’t competitive but instead founded on mutual respect and understanding.”
If photography was the catalyst for their connection, it soon faded into the background, becoming a quiet observer. “Throughout the day, we talked a lot, got to know each other, wandered around,” she explains, “and photography wove itself into those moments of connection – until it became almost secondary.” The images shift between posed and candid, subject and space, tumbling naturally through the interplay of implicit and explicit forces that shape human relationships. “At the end of the day I missed my train, so we ended up staying in Trouville until the next morning. It was a beautiful accident.”
The title is taken from a book by the marine biologist Rachel Carson, who wrote about the sea and its marine life in a tone that was both poetic and scientific. Much like its namesake, The Sea Around Us ebbs and flows with the rhythms of nature: allowing human connection to emerge, instinctively, unforced, like the tide itself.
Yet, most pertinently, through its dulcet, reflective pace, there is a sense of a shared gaze – reciprocal rather than directive, where “sisterhood” replaces hierarchy, and where intimacy is not staged, but instinctively felt. “I was intent on showing a collaborative process – an equal, horizontal relationship,” explains Deteneuille, “Each of us gave something to the other, and I wanted that to be visible. My role was more about creating a framework where we could move freely.” In this space of quiet, honest exchange, The Sea Around Us offers not just images, but proof of what unfolds when women see – and allow themselves to truly understand – each other.
The Sea Around Us by Marie Deteneuille is out now and available for purchase through Yvon Lambert.
