Testimonial: Luc Mercier, passionate about sailing and photography
Luc Mercier has participated in the Medfoto editions of 2022 and 2024. A retired resident of Clichy (Paris), Luc is passionate about sailing and knows the sea from a unique perspective: that of someone who looks at the coast from the sea. As a sailor, he has traveled the eastern and western Mediterranean coast, experiencing both the calm and the Mediterranean storm.
Could you indicate a place in the Mediterranean that represents its essence?
Greece, and its islands. It is the cradle of our civilization. Sailing in Greece is discovering still preserved landscapes, discovering temples, remains of ancient cities, churches on every small island, but also facing the reality of the world, such as the transshipment of cargoes from Russian tankers to Chinese ones, circumventing the embargo, a few miles off the coast of Cythera.
It is also discovering the island of Mykonos, immersed in mass tourism and with huge cruise ships anchored in a port that has become too small.
Is Medfoto necessary? Why?
To immortalize this sea, its history, its people, this ecosystem and its landscapes, so fragile, that will disappear if we do nothing.
What is the health level of the relationship between people and the Mediterranean?
There are areas where there is a will to preserve the marine environment, I think of the Costa Brava and others like Greece, which suffer at a dizzying speed from the exponential development of mass tourism.
Could you explain the story behind your photograph Fisherwoman of Monemvasia, finalist in the Marine Trades category of MedFoto 2024?
Monemvasia is the second port where I stopped in Greece coming from the Costa Brava, in the south of the Peloponnese, in April 2023. Just after mooring next to a boat abandoned by migrants, I went ashore and met this woman who was returning from fishing. She had an incredible smile, and it is not common to find a professional fisherwoman, especially in Greece.
The following year the photo was selected for the final and I passed through Monemvasia again in July. Her boat was still moored in the same place and I had the pleasure of bringing her a copy of the photo. She was very proud to appear on MedFoto’s Instagram.
What can we do to contribute to a better preservation of the Mediterranean?
Continue developing MedFoto, which is more than a contest, it is a political project that shows the best but also the worst of what man does in the Mediterranean, to raise awareness that it is time to act throughout the basin.
A wish for the future of the Mediterranean?
That this sea be preserved because it is the cradle of our Western civilization.
