About the project

Our Story

Progress Over the Years

2005

First year at Tour de France

The first year at the Tour de France started as a personal project and resulted in a publication in the STERN – which for me was an incredible achievement, as I had just finnished my training as a photographer.

2005-2014

Consistency is key

I returned to Tour de France over the next 10 years, as I knew, that analog photography was becoming more and more abandonned and I wanted to keep it alive for myself as I nice contrast to digital work – which had taken over my worklife by now.

2014

First book – Digitalisation

Self editing was becoming a thing and I had collected 10 years of material. I brought out a first edition – very limited as still self publishing was something incredibly expensive.

2017

First time showing big!

2017 was the Grand Depart in Düsseldorf. I sent my expose and the first draft of the book to the NRW Forum where I had my first and very important exhibition among exhibits of Robert Capa, Andreas Gursky and others. A big leap for ALLEZ LE TOUR! Check out how it went here.

I worked with translators to bring out the book into 4 languages and a lot of research went into where to print and how to ship everything, to still make a version that would be affordable to the public and visitors.

2019

More exhibitions – Brussels

I had found my goal for this year and travelled to Brussels. Roaming the city I found the perfect place to exhibit for 2019. Les Halles Saint Gery, open to public and a beautiful building in the heart of Brussels was the place to be. A lot of work, sweat and love went into this exhibition – by all people involved. 8.000 visitors were counted by the end of this exhibition. Of cousre the book was updated for this event and showed now 14 years of Tour de France.

2021

Presenting in my hometown

The pandemic had us all pinned down but I was able to continue my project of the Tour de France. When everything went back to normal, I was so happy to get invited to my hometown in NRW to present my work there as well one summer.

2021 – 2025

Collecting more material

Right now I am in the process of selecting more material that will be in the next edition of the book and quite some of it is already in the process of digitilising. This is a process I really enjoy, but it does take a lot of time as well and has to be done next to all other work – so sometimes its challenging to prioritize. But I do hope to get everything ready soon, as the next Grand Depart is in Barcelona.

Our Story

You can expect a great book, which will show you what life alongside Tour de France is really about.

280 pages

with photographs and fun facts

2.5 kg of Tour History

For analog photography lovers

Over 8.000 visitors in Brussels

Best present for cycling fans

Tour de France photography book – Allez le Tour black and white 35mm

Our Location

The photographer

Nicola Mesken

Photographer

Nicola Mesken was born in 1972 in Münsterland, North Rhine-Westphalia.
Since 2005, she is living in Barcelona as a freelance photographer.

At the beginning of 2014, Nicola Mesken opened her own photo studio in Barcelona and has since then focused on portrait photography and product photography.

For her long-term photo project “ALLEZ LE TOUR,” however, Nicola Mesken shoots exclusively on black-and-white film.

Since 2005, she has been documenting life on the sidelines of the Tour de France and regularly publishes updated editions of her book “ALLEZ LE TOUR!”

You can find her work at www.nicola-mesken.com