Photo Ops in France

WHAT APRES-MIDI AND RUPERT MURDOCH HAVE IN COMMON

Après-Midi in Nice takes place on the fourth Thursday of every other month (unlike our monthly gatherings in Paris): January/March/May/July/September/November. And the November session falls on Thanksgiving Day, so we have an opportunity for our community in Nice to celebrate Thanksgiving together!

This past Thursday, British-born reporter, editor and producer, Claire Atkinson, told us from the beginning that much of her talk would be sensitive information that couldn’t be shared on YouTube. So, about halfway in, we stopped the recording. The sensitive information was inside information on the life of Rupert Murdoch, but in truth, the discussion went in a completely different direction: media, reporting and truth in today’s world.

Claire described what it’s like for a journalist to walk the tightrope of reporting the facts vs the angle the media wants the reporters to take. This really got the 55 people in the room stirred up and the discussion became quite lively. (Personally, I’m really sorry you will miss this part as the temperature in the room rose just after we stopped the recording!)

Claire Atkinson has written about the global media business on both sides of the Atlantic. She was previously on Insider’s business desk and came from NBC News where she was Senior Media Editor reporting for NBCNEWS.com, Nightly News, MSNBC and NBC News Now. She is also a regular guest on CNBC and appeared on CNN’s Reliable Sources.

Claire travels the world to keep you ahead of what’s happening in media, tech and marketing. She’s also the author of a new upcoming bio on Rupert Murdoch (hence, the talk about Murdoch!). She is based in France but is frequently in London and New York. We were happy to have her lead such a lively discussion.

It was a fun and informative afternoon and at least you’ll get to see most of it by reading our report and viewing the video.

Meanwhile, don’t miss the upcoming sessions!

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY PATTY SADAUSKAS

Before heading up to the first floor of Oscar Restaurant, where Après-Midi is held, the entire Adrian Leeds Group Nice team lunched with Claire to celebrate Patty Sadauskas’ 10 years in France and 10 years working with us. Patty began working with me the day after she arrived in France. Little did we know then in Paris that her part-time job doing some filing and scanning would end up more than full time—virtually running the company alongside me—and she’d be living in Nice. She doesn’t seem to regret a single moment.

The team happens to be made up solely of women. That’s not by design; just by chance. But, we asked ourselves why it seems so many more women end up in real estate than men. We pretty much nailed it ourselves, but this is what ChatGPT has to say:

In the United States (and similarly in many other countries), women significantly outnumber men in residential real estate sales. According to data from the National Association of Realtors (NAR): About 66-67% of Realtors are women, while approximately 33–34% are men. However, in commercial real estate, the gender distribution is very different: Men dominate, making up roughly 75–80% of professionals in commercial brokerage and investment roles.

The key reasons why women are more prevalent in residential real estate:

• Flexible Schedules
• Strong Interpersonal Skills
• Low Barriers to Entry
• Entrepreneurial Appeal
• Historical Shifts (As more women entered the workforce from the 1970s onward, real estate became one of the few white-collar professions where women could quickly build a career with fewer institutional roadblocks.)

My first thought, however, which didn’t make ChatGPT’s list, is that women have a different affinity for making a “nest” than men. They know what it means to create a home. And a home starts with a house or apartment, or even an igloo or a teepee. The real estate may be the asset, but it’s necessary to building that nest.

WHAT TO KNOW ABOUT BUYING A SECOND HOME IN THE RIVIERA AND PROVENCE

Journalist Genevieve Mansfield and The Local did it again…they can’t stop talking about the Riviera and it has turned it into a series:

“As part of The Local’s series on second-homes in France, here is everything you need to know (the good, the bad, and the ugly) about purchasing property in the French Riviera and Provence, according to both home-owners and property experts.”

We were interviewed by Mansfield and quoted, as we’re bringing more Americans to Nice than any other agency!

Read the latest article.

And if you want to follow the entire series, click here.

AVEDON IN THE WEST

It didn’t upset me one bit that the Fondation Henri Cartier-Bresson moved from the 14th arrondissement to rue des Archives, just a few blocks away from my Marais home. The exhibitions there are often worth a detour, even if coming from across town, but the one on at the moment (till October 12th, 2025), Richard Avedon in the American West, is one of the museum’s best.

This year marks the 40th anniversary of Richard Avedon’s landmark project In the American West. Between 1979 and 1984, commissioned by the Amon Carter Museum of American Art in Fort Worth, Texas, Avedon traveled extensively across the American West, photographing more than 1,000 individuals. Over five years, he captured portraits of miners, herders, performers, salespeople, and transient workers—each with a compelling story—posing alone or in small groups against stark white backdrops. This minimalist setting emphasized their features, gestures, and expressions, offering a raw and powerful counterpoint to romanticized portrayals of the American West. The resulting 103 portraits, featured in the book In the American West, represent a defining moment in Avedon’s career and a milestone in the history of portrait photography.

My daughter is a photographer and I’m a collector, so we have a small amount of knowledge when it comes to understanding what it takes to create such a body of work as this. We marveled at the technique and the subjects he chose—the kind of Americans that we know exist, but don’t see up front and up close. These are the real people who do the dirty jobs, whose lives are carved in their faces. Unless we were to have lived in these places, we would never have had the opportunity to see the coal miners, copper miners, and oil field workers; the cattle workers, sheep herders, and cowboys; farm seasonal and migrant workers; drifters and transients, truck drivers and mechanics, carnival and sideshow workers; barmaids and waitresses; construction and oil workers; prison Inmates, salespeople and clerks; teenagers and runaways, veterans; housewives and mothers…portrayed in raw, unadorned realism.

For the first time in Europe, this complete series of photographs from the original publication is being exhibited. The show also delves into the making and legacy of the project, displaying a comprehensive selection of engraver’s prints used as reference for both the 1985 book and original exhibition. It also features never-before-seen materials, including annotated test prints, preparatory Polaroids, and personal correspondence between Avedon and his subjects. To commemorate the anniversary, Abrams—the book’s original publisher—is reissuing the long out-of-print volume.

Don’t miss it. Visit the Fondation Henri Cartier-Bresson website to learn more and get your tickets.

MOTHER’S DAY A SECOND TIME AROUND

We are such lucky mothers in France. American mothers celebrated Mother’s Day two weeks ago and we get to celebrate it twice, as in France, it was celebrated yesterday…so we take advantage of both…at least Erica and I did. This year we had Little Leeds in tow to mark an even more special occasion.

For a Mother’s Day gift, Erica presented me with about 70 photos, actually printed (!) of the two of them, some with me, too, and a photo album to put them in, so that we could recreate the kind of albums we did long before digital photos became the norm. We have about a dozen huge albums from those years when she was a kid and we often take them down and look through them. There is simply nothing quite like having a physical album of memories captured in an image, in color or black-and-white. Those days are sadly gone…but not necessarily.

Erica has made me promise not to divulge Little Leeds’ name or run a photo in these Nouvellettres®, so I won’t. But I will tell you that the child is already signed up with a modeling contract (!) thanks to his good looks and special characteristics, which seem to be in great demand for commercial purposes.

In France, for a child to get modeling gigs legally and safely, there are clear procedures and protections in place. Children under 18 must have written permission from a parent or legal guardian to work as a model. In France, all minors working in entertainment or modeling need a government-issued work permit. This permit must be approved before any work begins. Applications are reviewed by a special committee to ensure the job respects child welfare laws. The child’s schedule must comply with labor laws and earnings are deposited in a special locked account until the child reaches adulthood. Modeling can never interfere with school or well-being. Agencies and parents must prioritize the child’s comfort and safety.

Little Leeds hasn’t nailed a gig yet, but the contracts just got signed and the agency represents some pretty cool kids and some pretty big advertisers…so even though I’m not allowed to post any photos, he could end up on billboards all over France instead! Wouldn’t that be my just reward!?

A la prochaine…