©Maxime Riché, Paradise Book Cover, Courtesy of André Frère Editions

©Maxime Riché, Paradise Book Cover, Courtesy of André Frère Editions

After living through the devastating Palisades and Altadena fires last year, Californians like me, now carry an intensified awareness of climate change and the growing inevitability of wildfire. What once felt seasonal or distant has become too close for comport and deeply personal. Fire is no longer understood as an isolated natural disaster, but as part of an escalating climate crisis that continues to reshape communities, ecosystems, and our sense of security.  Maxime Riché‘s  powerful new monograph, Paradise, published by André Frère Editions, arrives to remind us that.

Riché’s project centers on the aftermath of the 2018 Camp Fire, which tore through Paradise, California, in just four hours after being ignited by a faulty power line. The deadliest wildfire in U.S. history, it claimed the lives of 86 people and erased entire neighborhoods with terrifying speed. Three years later, the Dixie Fire erupted beneath the same power lines, becoming the largest single wildfire in California history and generating its own weather systems as it scorched nearly one million acres. Riché traveled to Paradise in 2020 and 2021, returning repeatedly to photograph those who had chosen to rebuild their lives in a place transformed by catastrophe.

What distinguishes Paradise is that it is not simply a document of destruction, but an exploration of the emotional and psychological terrain left behind. Riché reveals that the visible devastation is only the surface of a much deeper wound, the one carried by residents, firefighters, and survivors living under the constant shadow of the next megafire. To convey this lingering trauma, he intermittently employed infrared color slide film, whose saturated reds and smoldering hues evoke hallucinations, flashbacks, and memories burned into the retina. The resulting images oscillate between documentary and nightmare, suggesting landscapes permanently altered both physically and psychologically.

Riché further deepens the project through an innovative printing process he calls the “color resinotype,” incorporating ashes from trees burned in the Camp Fire. Using pine resin, ash, and natural earth pigments in a non-toxic adaptation of the gum dichromate process, the prints themselves become materially connected to the scorched landscape they depict. In doing so, the work erases the boundary between subject and medium, embedding the residue of destruction directly into the photographic surface.

©Maxime Riché, Spread from Paradise, Courtesy of André Frère Editions

Maxime Riché is a French artist and photographer.

In a line of work he defines as “speculative documentary”, he explores our refusal to accept physical and philosophical limits, and its consequence for the world’s habitability. His projects emphasize the sensory experience of the materiality of his subjects and offers a reflection on landscape, bodies, and, through them, our relationship to the places we inhabit.

Three times a Prix Pictet nominee (UK, 2021, 2023, 2025), he won the Fotografia Europea Open Call (IT, 2021), Prix Maison Blanche (FR, 2022) and Prix Dahinden (FR, 2024), among others. A graduate in engineering from École Centrale (France), Columbia University (USA), and the University of Cambridge (UK), Maxime is a member of the Tendance Floue collective in France and a project-based doctoral candidate at CY Cergy Paris Université/ENSAPC (FR).

Instagram: @maxriche & https://maximeriche.com

@andrefrere_editions & https://www.andrefrereditions.com

How to order the book : directly on André Frère Editions’ website : https://www.andrefrereditions.com/en/books/photography/paradise/

©Maxime Riché, Spread from Paradise, Courtesy of André Frère Editions

©Maxime Riché, Spread from Paradise, Courtesy of André Frère Editions

©Maxime Riché, Spread from Paradise, Courtesy of André Frère Editions

©Maxime Riché, Spread from Paradise, Courtesy of André Frère Editions

Paradise

On November 8, 2018, the Camp Fire ravaged Paradise, California, in four hours. Ignited at dawn by a faulty power line, it ranks as the deadliest fire in U.S. history and claimed the lives of 86 people. In 2021, the Dixie Fire erupted under the same power lines. It scorched an area triple the size of San Francisco (963,000 acres). Standing as the largest single fire in California’s history, it generated its own weather patterns. I traveled to Paradise in 2020 and 2021 to meet those who had decided to rebuild their “paradise” in what had become an inhospitable place.

Fire develops the unseen. The tangible devastation was indeed merely the tip of the iceberg. I uncovered the deep psychological wounds experienced by firefighters and residents alike. The constant threat of wildfires now looms over those who reconstruct their homes in the shadow of the next megafire. To sensitively convey the emotions of survivors and their haunting visions, I have intermittently used infrared color slide film. Its smoldering hues are like flashbacks of the hell they endured, hallucinations evoking the flames seared into their retina and memories. This film, sensitive to light in the near-infrared range, acts as a fiery developer on the landscape, questioning our capacity to exert control over the spaces we inhabit. The color red, symbolizing both danger and inferno, invites a rediscovery of an ancient, primal fear of fire, embedded in each of us.

For selected photographs, I developed a “color resinotype” print process using pine ashes from the trees burnt by the Camp Fire: pine resin and ash grains create the blacks ; reds and yellows are made of natural earth pigments, using a non-toxic process adapted from the gum dichromate technique, depolluted from its toxic components.

Moving back and forth between the waking world and a nightmare we can’t escape, “Paradise” serves as a parable for the gradual healing following disasters increasingly caused by human actions. It narrates the arduous journey of resurrecting a world from its ashes. The story of Paradise not only points to our realities as we adapt to new life conditions, but also highlights our growing disconnect from the “natural” world and our hubris in trying to control it, irrespective of the consequences.

©Maxime Riché, A house on a newly acquired plot following the Camp Fire. August 2021.from Paradise, Courtesy of André Frère Editions

©Maxime Riché, Pearson Road, Paradise. Three teenagers head out to fish in the morning amidst the smoke from the nearby Dixie Fire, which has been burning for several days. July 2021..from Paradise, Courtesy of André Frère Editions

©Maxime Riché, The sign marking the entrance to Paradise along Skyway, the town’s main thoroughfare. Behind it, a new sign, erected after the 2018 Camp Fire, signals the town’s ongoing reconstruction. The fire ravaged 240 square miles of forest, destroyed 18,800 homes, and led to 86 fatalities, 3 injuries, and 11 people reported missing, as well as over fifty indirect casualties. As of 2017, the population of Paradise was estimated at 26,882. February 2020, from Paradise, Courtesy of André Frère Editions

©Maxime Riché, Lime Saddle Marina. Lake Oroville, not far from Paradise, is California’s second-largest lake, and the Oroville Dam is the tallest in the United States. It is part of a network serving over 20 million homes and nearly 741,316 acres of farmland. In September 2021, the lake’s water volume dropped to just 24% of its capacity, leading to the dam’s shutdown for the first time since its construction in 1967. July 2021, from Paradise, Courtesy of André Frère Editions

©Maxime Riché, A house being rebuilt in August 2021, with the sky shrouded in smoke from the Dixie Fire that raged all summer outside the town, from Paradise, Courtesy of André Frère Editions

©Maxime Riché, The hills of Feather River Canyon shrouded in smoke from the Dixie Fire shortly after it broke out. July 2021, from Paradise, Courtesy of André Frère Editions

©Maxime Riché, Carrie Max on the site of her house which was lost in the fire. “It’s like the Wild West here; I don’t feel safe alone, without a fence around my property.” July 2021, from Paradise, Courtesy of André Frère Editions

©Maxime Riché, Mobile Home Park, Village Parkway, Paradise. February 2020., from Paradise, Courtesy of André Frère Editions

©Maxime Riché, Coutolenc Road, Magalia. July 2021. from Paradise, Courtesy of André Frère Editions

©Maxime Riché, The Feather River at Pulga Town. Located at the start of Camp Creek Road lined with the electrical pylons responsible for the Camp Fire in 2018 and the Dixie Fire in 2021, this small hotel was shuttered every summer due to the wildfires and has not welcomed any visitors in three years. July 2021, from Paradise, Courtesy of André Frère Editions