Episode 10: Maxime Riché
“I could see that nature was going to heal, or grow back much faster than we are.”
Maxime Riché
After the Fires
Through his camera lens, French photographer Maxime Riché captures California's recent wildfires, and the resilience of communities that rise from its ashes. Educated as an engineer, Maxime's award-winning work sits at the intersection of art, science and environmental activism.
In 2020, he traveled to the town of Paradise, California, to meet and photograph people rebuilding their lives after the Camp Fire. He returned to the West Coast a year later as the Dixie Fire ravaged nearly one million acres. He asks, "How do we heal after these fires? I wanted to capture the town's reconstruction and the psychological healing."
In his forthcoming book, Paradise, Maxime invites us to consider our relationship with the environment and the consequences of our choices. His scorched landscapes, photographed with infrared film, glow with colors as fiery as embers. Some of his images include ground pine resin and ashes collected on site and in his portraits. Steely survivors gaze straight at us. You get the picture: He doesn't want us to look away.
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Transcript
(Edited slightly for clarity)
Melissa Ceria: Maxime Riché, welcome.
Maxime Riché: Thank you.
Melissa Ceria: It's always interesting, Maxime, to meet people who've had clearly defined chapters in their lives. You studied engineering, and then you worked briefly in consulting for a few years. I'm curious, at what point did you realize that this wasn't the track that you wanted to be on?
Maxime Riché: That's a very good question, because it's a path that comes to you gradually. You don't think straight off that you're not on the right track. But after testing, trying different things out in a set job for a few years, you perhaps realize that you need something more and that you miss some different components in your life. So after three years, gradually I thought that I wanted to get involved on more urgent topics, to me, at least at the time, and that was environmental degradation or climate change. Like those challenges that we were facing in 2009 - 2010 when the topic came to the press, the public, when we first heard a lot about climate change in the news during the conference on the climate in Copenhagen. So gradually I thought, okay, I need a change. I need to do something else, something that feels more urgent to me. And that's when I decided to leave my job and transition and become a photographer.
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Melissa Ceria [00:02:26] Which came first for you, the desire to immerse yourself in environmental activism or to become a photographer?
Maxime Riché [00:02:33] It's not as clear cut because as always, you think there's one formula, one recipe. Actually, I left my job and I didn't really know what to do. So I went traveling and I thought I would find the answers during this time of travel. I didn't. Obviously you're submerged in new sensations, emotions. So I came back and still didn't know what to do with my life. And then I had a really good advice of someone who said, when you're transitioning, when you're changing jobs, just take time to enjoy yourself. Just do whatever feels good to you. So I thought, okay, I have some time and then I will train in photography, which I had been practicing for years more as a hobby or my father was also taking photographs for, during his studies, and he initiated me to the art of making pictures. But it was still like, something I didn't really imagine as a profession. So I thought, okay, I'm going to spend some time training as a photographer, having the right toolkit just to know how to make pictures professionally. And in so doing, I really enjoyed it. I enjoyed it so much that I decided that I wanted to start my project on environmental issues with photography as a way to express the urgency of this topic, but also wanted to establish myself as a photographer because I enjoyed it so much that I wanted to spend all my time exploring that path.
Melissa Ceria [00:03:52] What was your sensitivity to your environment growing up?
Maxime Riché [00:03:55] I always lived in cities. But my father was, a mountain guide. So we used to go out in the mountains and hike on the weekends or during the holidays because he worked in mountain resorts or, you know, trekking with clients. So I was sensitized to that very early and climbed as a child, also. So I kind of enjoyed being in nature. But I wouldn't say it really hit me until I was actually looking for a cause or the topic that felt really important to me. I was working in health care as an engineer. So I thought that caring for human beings was something really important. And it is. But the way it was done in my job didn't really suit me. So I thought, okay, if I can't be in that industry, what else is more urgent to me? That's when I thought, okay, environmental topics are really key right now. We are all concerned by those kinds of topics. It's affecting the life of everybody. So I decided that perhaps that was the one thing I needed to get more concerned about and be more active about.
Melissa Ceria [00:05:02] In 2021, Maxime, you published a book called Climate Heroes, in which you profiled eight ordinary people who have dedicated their lives to preserving the planet. How did you decide on who to feature?
Maxime Riché [00:05:13] It was very organic. I remember my first trip was my first project as a photographer. I thought, okay, maybe I'm going to talk about deforestation because it was a topic that was really important on, you know, carbon emissions but also environmental protection. So I researched deforestation and I thought, okay, maybe I'm going to document some of the deforestation in Indonesia because I needed to travel there at that time. And I realized that talking about destruction, that was not the right angle. And also it was very dangerous for me as a freelancer not being attached to any TV channel, or magazine, or anything to go there and venture on those grounds and, you know, try to document something.
Melissa Ceria [00:05:55] Why would it be dangerous for you?
Maxime Riché [00:05:56] Industries who produce paper don't like photographers, because you are actually showing the destruction that they're doing on the landscape. So in Indonesia, for instance, there is not an easy problem because people who live there need to make a living. So they have to cut trees and sell them for money because they don't have any other income or resource. But the major multinationals, who actually cut trees and make paper pulp to sell to, to other companies were making those sheets of paper, they don't like journalists or photographers to come and document what they're doing. And when I researched that, I was in touch with the fixer, so that someone who actually takes photographers to the field and introduces them to the right contacts or the things to document who had been captured by the paper mafia, let's, let's say, in Indonesia. And so she told me that, yeah, it was really dangerous. And I thought, okay, maybe I'm not going to go in and try to venture to those places alone. So. I went there and I identified also some people who are doing positive things to their environment. So that included former illegal loggers, who had reconverted to now take care of their forest and grow fruits, coffee underneath the trees. It's called agroforestry. That's when I realized that those people were so proud to show me what they were doing. And I thought, okay, that's really inspiring. And also it's something I can do as an individual, as a young photographer, without risking my life. And also, it's the right angle that nobody can argue that it's not happening or not real. You know, remember in 2009 and 2010, climate change, there is not such an anonymous opinion on it, like the fact that it was manmade. It took a few years to have this consensus, so I didn't want anyone to attack my project saying like, yeah, but this is based on weak foundation. So I thought, okay, the issue is not whether it's real or happening or not. The issue is, are my photographs good? Is the story compelling? Is it inspiring people? We identified a group of women in the Gambia in Africa, who had been recycling plastic for 15 years, who had managed to ban plastic from importation in the Gambia, and also were empowering women to, you know, emancipate themselves from the household, have an income and take care of their environment so that it was all very organic.
Melissa Ceria [00:08:20] It's interesting, your book is structured around four key words: the call, the commitment, the path, and the renewal. Is this how you feel a little bit about your own journey?
Maxime Riché [00:08:30] When you talk about transformation, there's always a moment. There's a call to action, or there's the moment of realization. And it's the same thing that we all live. And it's the same thing that happens in all the stories, like since the mythologies and the heroes of ancient Greece. And there's this time when you decide you need to do something different because your daily life or your communities and going well, so you go into a quest or an adventure. For the heroes, they say they enter the underworld, you know, like where you fight the dragon and you have surreal experiences or whatever. And then if you come back from this trip, you come back to your world in a renewed state. It's a better situation for everybody until maybe the next cycle comes around, and then you have to go on a new quest. Yeah.
Melissa Ceria [00:09:17] Was that quest your departure for California?
Maxime Riché [00:09:20] It led me to that, yes, because after working on climate change that I thought, I need to open up the the topic to the way we live on the planet, not just like, do we emit carbon or not, but also how do we react to what's happening to us? You don't want to only see an environmental story in this work. It's a societal human story. It's about us. It's not about the environment. Lots of people say the environment is going to take care of itself anyways. The planet is going to survive. But maybe we want it's about us. How do we react to those events, catastrophes? And I wouldn't say really natural disaster. It's more like human catastrophes rather than purely natural. I mean, yes, the nature has burnt, but it's growing back much faster than we are healing as a community. I had spotted this story, this town, in a newspaper article, and then I put that aside. And at some point one of my mentors in photography told me, like, Oh, do you remember that town it completely burned down two years ago? I was like, Oh yeah, that's true. Maybe I need to really go check it out. And every time you always need like an ignition factor, like the one encounter or event or something that, you know, triggers the fact that you're going to go on that path. The next week, I was in California and I was documenting the rebuilding of that town. I realized that, yes, it was really something that I could do as a photographer. I could invent my own artist vision of what those people were, you know, living through. And so I continued working on that.
Melissa Ceria [00:10:56] So you decide to head out to Paradise, California. What did you see upon your arrival? Can you describe the landscape and the people that you met?
Maxime Riché [00:11:05] So I didn't really know what to expect. I didn't really realize how big the city was. I thought I would be able to walk through the town, you know, and just take my time and then document what was going on. Actually, you need a car because it's 26,000 inhabitants initially. You know, it's not a small village. So I arrived there and then I remember the first drive up the road to go to that town, and I saw the burnt trees and the scorched land, and it was really, really strange, like in between a desert and, you know, devastated, burnt landscape because it had been the year and a few months since the Campfire, 2018, and I was in the 2020s. It was already a little bit greener. But still they had cleaned up most of the houses, the rubbles, so you could see lines on the ground that delineated the areas that had been cleaned up without pollutants anymore, because when a house burns, the pollutants go in the ground, the land, the plastic, everything melts and goes in the ground, into the ground. So they had cleaned up all those areas. So you had like large scorched earth, like bare earth areas where the houses were before and a few trees here and there, but very few. And it was really surreal, a bit strange when.
Melissa Ceria [00:12:22] You start documenting people who had survived the fire. Can you tell us a bit about them and how their lives had changed?
Maxime Riché [00:12:31] Yeah, the situations vary greatly because some people had insurance that compensated for their loss. If they had good insurance, they were able to rebuild straight away, more or less. So my first trip there, I was actually trying to spot who was there in town, because from the 26,000 people, you had only 2,000 or 2,500 people who had come back a year and a few months after the facts. I was driving around and I was stopping when I saw a house being rebuilt, see if there were people working on it, and then asking them whether they were open to telling me their story and how they were rebuilding and what they had lived through. Some of them were rebuilding like really big houses. Some of them had some wood on there on their plot, and then they were just waiting to have the contractors come in and rebuild. Most of them were in trailers, waiting to either be compensated for their loss or with the judgment that the trial that was pending with the electricity company who was supposed to indemnify them for the fire. Lots of them were still asking for food donations from the Church in Paradise and Magalia, or furniture or clothes. Because they'd lost their job, they lost their house, they didn't have anything left. You know, you go to laundry at the church because you don't have any way to wash or clean your clothes. So it was very, very different. Lots of people had suffered a lot, and we're still like in this limbo. You know, I mean, it's interesting that the town is called Paradise because if you want to draw the metaphor, it was really limbo for them, the purgatory, you know, they didn't know where to go. They they were waiting for money or, you know, trial or insurance money. They have no way to move somewhere else. They had spent all their savings, to go to hotels in the first months. So, yeah, it was, it was really touching.
Melissa Ceria [00:14:23] Stepping into situations like these where there's so much pain and trauma following loss is extremely delicate. How did you earn people's trust?
Maxime Riché [00:14:34] Well, first is by being honest. But also the fact that I was coming all the way from Paris to document that I made a good impression on them because they said, okay, you're coming all this way to tell our story. So thank you for being here, because lots of people were also like, felt left behind by the support system, let's say, either NGOs or state support systems. They had benefited from temporary housing for some of them. But a year or two years after the first fire, not anymore. Some of them were being kicked out of their temporary houses by the state, who needed to take those mobile houses, too, to bring them to the next catastrophe, you know. So the fact that I came and told them very honestly, what I was aiming to do, I think made a big difference. And then, you know, people can feel if you're honest or not, and then being able to listen and let them tell their story also. And that helped a lot. Yeah.
Melissa Ceria [00:15:34] What struck you the most in your conversations with them?
Maxime Riché [00:15:37] I would say the emotions that came through their voices when they were telling me their stories, and that you can hear in the photography film that I edited with the pictures and their voices. That's why also I created this film because I wanted to give enough space to their testimonials and their voices, because as a photographer, I interpret a scene, I can write a caption, but it's still my doing and my writing. So I wanted to have something that was really their voice in the project somehow. And that's also why I asked them to write on a piece of paper, part of their story, or whatever project or what they had lived. Then that will be also in the book that I'm preparing, because I want their documents, their writing, their stories to be there first hand.
Melissa Ceria [00:16:26] You said, "I wanted to capture the town's reconstruction and the psychological healing." I'm wondering, did you observe similarities between nature's healing abilities and our own as human beings?
Maxime Riché [00:16:38] Similarities or differences? I was there in 2020 and 2021, so I was able to see the difference of how nature was going back in the duration of one year, and nature is growing back quite quickly. I mean, okay, a tree is not going to grow like 20 meters in a year, but the bushes that the green parts of, of the leaves, it didn't really look the same at all. A year after my first trip, so I could see that nature is going to heal or grow back much faster than we are. I think what I found is that three years after Campfire, when I was last in Paradise in the summer of 2021 during the Dixie fire, some people still hadn't moved on. They were still impeded by this, you know, this pain. They didn't find an ear to hear this story. And, probably I don't know if they had benefited from psychological help or not, because PTSD is a very important thing after those, those events. But after our last meetings, some of the people I met several times told me that thanks to our discussion, that sometimes were difficult or sometimes led them to cry out for when, you know, when they were telling me their story, after that they had found and desire to call their friends again, go out for dinner again. They had managed to move on. So it actually helped them, you know, do the catharsis kind of, or start doing it. So yeah, it's much longer, I would say, for, for us as human beings or as a group to get better after that.
Melissa Ceria [00:18:09] You said they didn't have an ear to hear them. How important do you think it is for their story to be heard?
Maxime Riché [00:18:16] Well, it's very important because it's happening also in many other places on the planet right now throughout Europe, or different other countries. You know, you have Siberia, Australia, Brazil, lots of places are suffering from the changing conditions, temperatures, the droughts. So, I think it's, it's important to share those stories as, it's a, it's a tale like Paradise is a symbolic name in itself. And this project, the series is a tale about what could happen again. And that's also what I tried to bring in my photographs. I try to give that sense that it can happen again. And actually it did, because it was burning almost every year or every other year around that town, for the last few years. So it's the issue of recurrence and the fact that we may want to learn from what we've done and may want to adapt or not. So that's the questions I'm asking. Not giving any answers. I'm just asking the questions.
Melissa Ceria [00:19:13] You then come back to the States to document the Dixie fire. That fire was happening in real time when you arrived. As a photographer, you know, is it easier for you to communicate the urgency of your subject matter while the fire is happening, or in its aftermath?
Maxime Riché [00:19:30] I think there are lots of photographers who work on the immediacy of the events, on the news, and I'm not a news photographer, so I know straight off that I'm not going to do that because it's not where I'm good at. And I don't have the support system, also let's say, a magazine or an agency. I'm solo, I'm an artist, so I can't venture to the same places. Although during the Dixie fire, I was able to go through the police blocks because I had a letter of mission from the French agency. And when you say you are a journalist in California, you can go anywhere you'd like, but it's at your own risk. So I was also very cautious about that, and I didn't want to, let's say, be too obvious about the events with the flames and the destruction. And it's it can be magnetic to look at those things. It's very intense. But then you forget about it very quickly, you know? I stayed away from the ongoing fires on purpose, except just the very few first days when I was there and it was burning on the hills next to Paradise. And I had to document that because I wanted to capture also that part of the landscape. But after that, I decided I'm not going to be a fire chaser. I mean, I wanted to see after the fires, but not during the fires. And that's what I found also more profound, is to suggest, not to show. So that's why I use this film. That's why I try to show, to bring back those colors to the to the photographs so that we can all feel in ourselves something that we know about the fire, about loss, about destruction, and not only be looking at an image of a burning house.
Melissa Ceria [00:21:09] You've defined your work as a speculative documentary. What exactly do you mean by that?
Maxime Riché [00:21:15] I'm a documentary photographer, but documentation usually refers to, I'm taking a picture now so that later it can be used as a historical document. Or I'm documenting something, you know, for its past value. And what I'm trying to do here is to ask questions about what we're going to do next, what the future can be. And it's more a hybrid between fiction and documentary. You know, it's more, What are we going to do now with this state of things? So speculative in that sense means it's hypotheses. It's asking questions, the possibilities. And that's, just to show that it's uncertain and it's all in our own hands, so we can do whatever we want from here.
Melissa Ceria [00:22:00] You've talked a little bit about how your work is also influenced by the French philosopher Jacques Elull, who believes that limits and constraints are inherent to the human condition, and that they're essential for ethical living and societal development. I'm curious, Is this something that you live by and how does it drive your creative process?
Maxime Riché [00:22:20] I like moderation. I like balance. I don't like excess, you know. So limitation, in that sense, is important for me. I mean his, his opinion about this is that this limit, you said for yourself, is what makes you a human being because you decide you're not going to cross that. You can think of many things that happened in history where human beings crossed the line and that made it horrible or, you know, catastrophic. I kind of like that we decide where we're going to go and where we're not going to go, and that's quite powerful when you think of it, because that means that you can be your own steward, you can navigate by yourself, you set yourself, your boundaries. And also in art, you know, the frame is a constraint, but it's a creative constraint and it helps you create within that context. So, I like the fact that it can be a red thread that helps me invent ways to talk about us in different ways on different topics. It's a stimulation. It's a creative process as well.
Melissa Ceria [00:23:26] How do you reconcile your interest and appreciation for balance with events like wildfires that seem like they're the result of some form of excess?
Maxime Riché [00:23:39] It's a very good question. Well, by talking about it, by trying to show it to people and trying to make them aware of what's going on. I didn't want to be critical about people I met in Paradise. I'm not here to judge whether it's good or not to rebuild at the same spot. Some people felt like, yes, it was time for them to move on to another place. Some felt so attached that they wanted to try another time to be there. Some felt like they're going to try again, but if that continues, maybe they move. Also, I'm trying to bring that to awareness without judging, just presenting that as a, as a fact. But the fact, with the twist, because as an artist, I am putting my own interpretation. You can never be neutral, so you have to choose.
Melissa Ceria [00:24:27] You mentioned that you employ infrared film to enhance colors in your prints. Can you discuss your creative process, including how do you integrate natural elements collected on site into your work?
Maxime Riché [00:24:40] It's very important for me also to be inspired by the physical limits or the physical elements of our world, because that's the topic that I'm talking about. I'm building stories around the limits of our way of living or the resources. So I like that a physical element such as what I collect on site, or such as the film that I use, constrains me also, and it reminds the of the reality of our world. You know, it's not just we are almighty and we can do whatever we want, and then no. We are living as physical beings in a world that has realities and physical constraints. So I try to get inspired by that, also to invent new ways of creating prints, showing that those components, those elements to the viewer.
Melissa Ceria [00:25:31] It seems like your engineering background must be pretty handy when you are developing these new techniques.
Maxime Riché [00:25:38] I'm also working with experts, printers, people who have mastered some old ancient techniques also. But then we invent, we we merge some of them, we create new ones. I'm not doing it by myself all alone, you know. It's, maybe it's more common in cinema that, you know, that there's the whole crew. But in photography also, you have lots of different people who help with artistic direction or printmaking or, for the scenography, for exhibitions or the publisher. Everything is a teamwork.
Melissa Ceria [00:26:08] Do you plan to keep documenting wildfires? Or are you considering focusing on other environmental topics?
Maxime Riché [00:26:14] So I'm not going to chase all the fires because that could be a never-ending process. I feel, sadly, but, no, I'm trying to use that as a springboard to other topics because, after the fires, you know, I want to talk about the forests, and forests they need water. And so there are other issues and topics that I can contribute to. Still following my red thread in my work, but trying to expand in concentric circles around what I've built before.
Melissa Ceria [00:26:45] And do you think that you'll continually need to innovate artistically to capture people's attention?
Maxime Riché [00:26:51] Well, first, it's something I enjoy. I'm trying to find a way of working that makes me happy about, you know, innovating or stimulating. Actually, when I use some materials I collect on the ground or in the field to create prints, or when I use a specific type of film, or when I do something to my film, it's also because it stimulates me to create differently. So it's intellectual curiosity and learning process that I think is important here. And obviously it helps to also differentiate yourself from a lot of other art that may be more conventional, so or more say straight documentary or, you know, descriptive. I like that notion of imagination and leaving space for the viewer to interpret. It's like when you read a book, we can all read the same page and we'll see different images in our head. So the idea is to give enough, but maybe leave some part for interpretation so that the viewer can also make it his or her own, because that's when action or change starts, when people can relate, not just intellectually, of course you need to, but also emotionally and so that it sets you into motion.
Melissa Ceria [00:28:04] I'm curious, how has this work changed you?
Maxime Riché [00:28:09] Well, clearly after spending a bit, about a month or a bit more in the ashes and the fires in 2021, let's say that was the longer trip that I did during the Dixie fire, I was really down and sad and, you know, not depressed, but like really sad because you feel you smell ashes, you see the smoke every day. And so, when I came back to Europe and it was also burning around the Mediterranean region, you made me even more sad because I thought, okay, well, this is going to come to Europe now. And it made me also more confident about the role of the artist in times of crisis or after crisis, because the conversations I had with them showed me that it was also helping them. So I thought, okay, that's a good thing. And it gave me confidence that there is a role an artist can play, even when it's a bit difficult for people. You're not just taking something, you're also giving back the fact that you are here, that you invest your time, your emotional support or your knowledge. Your craft as an artist also helps them. So that gave me confidence on that. So it changed me, let's say, in that direction rather.
Melissa Ceria [00:29:15] Thanks a lot, Maxime. I wish you all the best with your forthcoming projects and the release of your book, Paradise. Thanks for joining me in conversation today.
Maxime Riché [00:29:25] Thank you. You're welcome.
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