Celebrating Lavender Season: A Reflection on Changing Landscapes

Taking advantage of the lavender season, I would like to discuss a topic that I believe isn’t getting enough attention.

In recent years and with the rise of social networks, international tourism has increased. La Provence, for example, is internationally recognized for its picturesque villages, magnificent landscapes, and local products, including lavender and lavandin. It’s important to note that the large purple fields often seen are not lavender fields but lavandin, which you could say is lavender’s cousin.

For over seven years, I have specialized in photographing these ephemeral flowers, which only appear during the transition from spring to summer under certain special meteorological conditions, dazzling us for just two weeks each year. I began exploring and photographing the fields in 2017, during my first summer living in the south of France. It took numerous attempts and various tests at different times to conclude that the light which best fits my interpretation and photographic voice is the light revealed just before sunrise or just after sunset.

For the past few years large lavandin crops have been plagued by common diseases meaning that since 2021, the extensive fields that once colored the landscapes at Provence have begun to be replaced by other crops such as wheat, pink sage, or immortelle making it likely for the landscapes to change drastically from what is currently featured on Instagram or Pinterest as inspirational mood boards. Additionally, the price per liter of lavandin oil, which was approximately 34 euros in 2019, has dropped to between 12-15 euros (considering that production costs are around 20 euros), making production no longer profitable for farmers.

My goal in discussing this topic is to raise awareness and to highlight that those wishing to have a photoshoot at the lavandin fields should understand that finding a good field that matches the best light and landscape conditions will become increasingly difficult as the years go by and that as the client demand remains high, photoshoots will become even more exclusive than already is since unlike popular belief, we do not have a catalog of available fields to match the client’s vision or references. Also, we should always keep in mind that open fields are still privately owned, therefore stopping in the middle of the road for you to take pictures or harvest the flowers is not ok without the owner’s permission to do so.