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Famous for his photographic work and cinematographic achievements, Raymond Depardon is a sensitive and committed witness of the times he passes through, the territories he surveys and the people he meets.

For the first time, the National Maritime Museum, the Army Health Service Museum, the Defense Communication and Production Instituttion (ECPAD) and the Directorate of Heritage, Remembrance and Archives (DPMA) present, in close collaboration with the artist, a selection of 100 photographs taken during his military service between July 1962 and August 1963.

Raymond Depardon is then assigned as a photographer at the editorial staff of the Terre Air Mer (TAM) army magazine, the ”military Paris Match”. He produced more than 2,000 photographs, preserved and fully digitized at the ECPAD (the Defense Images Agency).

This corpus of images of his youth, never presented, highlights another side of Raymond Depardon’s career and illustrates the genesis of a look whose richness is now internationally welcomed. Between major military maneuvers and societal topics, the photographer on duty expresses with great freedom and portrays a changing country. In tune with a generation in uniform, Raymond Depardon offers an inventory of France of the 1960’s, already marked by a soft distance and an awareness of the territory that will be, years later, the signature of a great look.