Course Camargaise
France, 2025
35mm Film, 10 Images
Digital Scan 3130 × 2075px

I shot this in the Camargue during a spring trip through southern France. I didn’t know much about course camarguaise, the local, non-lethal version of bullfighting, just that we stumbled across a poster, bought last-minute tickets, and ended up packed into sun-soaked bleachers in a small-town arena.

A voice barked over the loudspeakers between rounds, announcing local sponsors and prize money. On the sand, men in white darted around bulls, trying to grab tiny rosettes tied between their horns. It was fast, strange, almost theatrical, but real enough to make you flinch.

This series tries to hold onto the atmosphere of that afternoon, and the oddly elegant rhythm of a ritualized play between animal and man, where, crucially, the bull walks away.

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