Valence, Views from Here, Coming from Elsewhere: portrait #2

For the ones who just arrive little reminder , beginning of February I had a crazy idea to take 9 girls new in Valence to let her choice one place in Valence which means something for her. I gave this list to the photographers, profesional or enthusiast, all passionnate. And I organized the photoshoot. They never met before. We had incredible moments. We share so much. We laugh a lot. I worked on it and now I’m so proud to introduce you to the portraits. You can also watch the teaser again here.

First portrait.

Gaëlle and Valence start their story almost 10 years ago. She left her hometown Allevard les Bains, Isère, to study in Camille Vernet school. From these 2 years Gaêlle didn’t keep good memories. So in 2009 she felt relieved to quit Valence to join one of the most amazing student city in France: Montpellier ! So yes sea, sun, the Comédie Place .. Who doesn’t want it ? Maybe our girl who left everything again to live in … United Kingdom! Change of scenary for sure and overall a good opportunity to improve her English during a year. Only a year since Gaelle doesnt stay on the same spot too long 😉 She moved again in Montpellier and Nîmes and finally she came back to Valence in June 2014 to join her boyfriend.

As you can imagine she didn’t feel so happy moving back to Valence. She felt like there is nothing to do here. Even if she doesn’t like big cities she loves being busy and discover new places. She was affraid to get bored.

Then finally she dealt with it and step by step she discovered that the city had more to offer than she though on the first place. Looking for new things she discovered many initiatives she likes, for example the Festival de Valence, which has a new name this year Festival sur le Champ.

What she noticed the most is how the city changed since her first time here, all the renovations helped a lot making the city nicer. She loves living downtown and thinks it’s not even expensive to live on a good area, she loves than everything is so close with her bike. She also likes the number of restaurants, we have many choices: in Valence all the tastes are on the restaurants 😉 A windfall for this foodlover.

For the project she choose a strong place in Valence: La Place Saint Jean. That one is less famous than the place des Clercs but it also has many good addresses to offer and overall the producers market on Tuesday night: a market at the end of the day it’s just perfect when you work ;).

When I asked Gaëlle why she choose it she told me she walked by the place with all the tables from the different restaurants and she really likes it, it looks very romantic for her. It’s calm and dreamy like Gaëlle.

Thanks Gaëlle to be my model of the day, for being so fun during the photoshoot and to your boyfriend our photographer of the day.

Model: Gaëlle Place: Place Saint Jean Valence. Photo credit: Guillaume.