A few words about my path ...

I was attracted very young by the captivating beauty of nature, and by the wildlife, so fascinating in its diversity. I grew up in an isolated place, a sort of island inhabited by majestic trees, clung to the shores of Lake Geneva, this lake itself set like a jewel between the Alps and the Jura. My attraction to photography probably initiated through the desire to perpetuate the fleeting impressions captured during my childhood.

When I was about 19, I gave back to my mum the Retina Reflex I had borrowed from her, and I dedicated my first paycheques to the purchase of the latest reflex camera: a Nikkormat EL equipped with a 400 mm Novoflex, soon followed by a second hand 16 mm Beaulieu motion camera. Heavily loaded, I clambered the slopes of Valais on the footsteps of the ibex and the chamois. But my interest has moved from wildlife – too difficult to approach in the Swiss mountains due to relentless predation —, to more serene and intimate visions that I strive to capture in their essence on large format film.

Apart from some elementary courses, I learned mostly by practising, through the process of trials and errors. I have been inspired by other photographer's work, and perhaps in a lesser extent, by some painters also. Eager to discover unscathed places, I had hopes that photography would allow me to travel the vast world. It has been mainly a nearby world, a world constituted of small patches of beauty which have to be found like gems or gold nuggets amongst the gravels of a river, a nevertheless captivating and almost interior world, that has unveiled before my lens.


• A 2008 interview for Digital Photographer Magazine, Ukraine edition


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