He has been covering news from the Côte d’Azur for 15 years for Agence France Presse. An unprecedented news with the Covid-19 epidemic, dramatic with the flooding of storm Alex and an attack. What look on this year which ends? Response elements.
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He remains professional in all circumstances and he knows how to hide all emotions when he works. Immortalizing events with his camera, transmitting them as quickly as possible for distribution around the world, this is the job of Valery Hache, photographer at Agence France Presse since 1995.
Reports, photos, AFP checks and disseminates information to its subscribers who relay them in their respective media. Valery is used to being among the first on events because, in the event of high news, teams come to take over, but later.
The strongest images are the ones taken at the very beginning …
In 2020, no major cultural events, no glamorous news like the Cannes Film Festival or Monaco. However, he was on all fronts.
The floods of October 3 in the valleys
This is one of the 30 strongest photos of the year selected by AFP.
A pink house above the Vésubie.
While flying over the Vésubie valley in a helicopter the day after the storm because the roads were impassable, he says he was stunned by a devastated landscape with, according to him, the effects of both an earthquake and a flood.
When we flew over Roquebilière, I understood the scale of the disaster. In Saint-Martin-Vésubie, the mountain subsided, the roads were cut off, with a void 50 meters below. The gendarmerie had moved 100 meters. I asked myself “how are they going to recover from this disaster?”.
The day before, at the end of the morning, this weather enthusiast had gone to Nice on the Promenade des Anglais.
Storm Alex was expected in the department, with flood vigilance in red for Météo France. At the end of the morning, the axis is closed, but Valéry wears his press armband. The municipal police prevent walkers from circulating.
I almost got boarded! I am located under the arcades, facing the sea. I see very low black clouds, which arrive very quickly, at 80 kilometers an hour… I escape to just take a photo… This is the first strong image of the storm , it was broadcast on the news channels continuously.
A complicated health situation
The coronavirus, two confinements in spring and fall, throughout the territory, the epidemic was widely covered by all the media.
For Agence France Presse, Nice is one of the largest offices in France.
As the health situation in Alpes-Maritimes was less tense, during the first wave, than in other departments, the photographer from Nice took the opportunity to make the “beautiful Covid news”:
I did few reports in nursing homes, they asked me for different photos. We would never have imagined in this so touristy department seeing the empty Promenade, observing a gull nesting on the deserted pebble beach, the blue chairs with just one person… The colors were magnificent, it went around the world.
Valery will highlight the war of elected press releases during this period with, again, photos that will make the headlines of many newspapers.
An attack
Last event retained by Valéry Hache this year: the Islamist attack in Nice. This October 29, a 21-year-old Tunisian kills 2 women and a man with a knife. It takes place in the morning shortly before 9 a.m., at the Basilica of Notre-Dame de l’Assomption.
Show responsiveness, speed, transmit images almost instantly. It’s an attack: I have a box with a wifi terminal, it happens in Paris, it’s edited with a caption and sent to our customers around the world.
I remember the desolation, the people who very quickly come to meditate, stares lost.
to summarize
Tired, a lot of work, stress, the need to be focused all the time. Despite everything, it is not 2020 that Valéry Hache retains in his professional career but the year 2016. An evening of fireworks on July 14 and an Islamist attack. Valéry is very quickly on the scene:
“It was carnage, the horror, it took a psychological follow-up that our employer offers in this case. Such news leaves indelible traces, that’s for sure,” he concludes.
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