Last journey
2023 marked the centenary of the death of Pierre LOTI, a naval officer, writer, illustrator, photographer and a man of the utmost eccentricity. An original character who, in addition to his literary work, left behind a writer’s home that was just as original. 2023 was also the year of my Egyptian getaway, and it was with his book *La Mort de Philae* under my arm that I travelled and sailed from Cairo to Aswan.
La Mort de Philae is a work based on the ‘Letters from Egypt’ that the author sent to the newspaper Le Figaro whilst travelling; the paper published them between 8 March 1907 and 9 December 1908. Going far beyond the conventions of a simple travelogue, the account bears witness to the singular modernity of Pierre LOTI’s perspective. As a true whistleblower, he condemns mass tourism, the damage of which he had witnessed elsewhere in the world, and raises awareness among his contemporaries of the risk of seeing an inestimable historical heritage disappear beneath the waters of a Nile soon to be subject to colonialist economic imperatives.
For him, L’Egypte éternelle is also an introspective journey, a public expression of his anxiety about the passing of time.
Following in Pierre LOTI’s footsteps, and guided by his words, I have constructed my own personal photographic memory of this journey, through the narrow lens of my pinhole camera.
*Dernier voyage* is the result of a dialogue between my photographs and the writings of Pierre Loti, separated by more than a century. The series is titled *Dernier voyage* because, when *La Mort de Philae* (1909) was published, Pierre Loti had no idea that Egypt would be the last great destination of his life.
He was also unaware that his political and literary commitments would not be in vain. Decades later, the Temple of Isis and the legendary Trajan’s Kiosk were saved from the waters, moved stone by stone from Philae to the sister island of Aguilkia under the auspices of UNESCO.
This series forms the backbone of my book: ‘Last Journey, a photographic dialogue with Pierre Loti’ – Corridor Eléphant Publishers (March 2026)
