When Pamela Anderson and I agreed to work with each other on location in Provence, my instincts were that we had to tell a throwback story and pay homage to the legend that is Brigitte Bardot. All other creative concepts fell short of the simplicity of recreating a Bardot vignette with someone that shares so many of Bardot’s traits.

Like her iconic peer, Pamela is effortlessly sexy and glamorous. She plays to men and the camera equally well. The South of France defines Pamela now, just as it has with Bardot for decades and it is no surprise that she has made it her home.

My preconception was for the photograph to have enough layers of narrative that it smelt of Provence and did so in a timeless way.For that we needed a cast, a styling and a location that complemented each other and collectively evoked a mood.

We found the street in Cassis - a beautiful village just east of Marseille. Its most helpful attribute was that it had a slope and this allowed me to be at the bottom of the street shooting uphill - so increasing the number of people that I could include in the photograph. Alex Ames, from the DYP team, did an excellent job in casting - as you can see. The composition had an intricacy that required patience from everyone involved and a good interpreter - as my French is shockingly inadequate to dress a set.

Pamela and I worked on favoured role plays for her and we decided that the lead directives would be for her to be carefree, glamorous and overtly sexy. The cast behind her would then react to her in a way that we would expect - adulation and just a little lust.

The carefree angle came with the shoes and then the glamorous and sexy part is innate to her. She killed it - as she has done repeatedly in her career.