Palette Terre de Provence exhibition in Fréjus
News from 17 November 2021. It has not been updated since it was published: some information may have changed. Latest news
All pilots know what a privilege it is to “see the earth from the sky”, but it is by sharing the passion for flying, especially with a passenger, that the beauty of the landscapes is revealed anew. Freezing a moment of the sky through photography is an attempt to immortalise a moment of great freedom and a fleeting landscape, revealed before our eyes.
I have been passionate about photography for a long time, but only recently turned professional. Hit by the impact of the 19 Covid crisis on my company's business (introductory flights, weight-shift and electric paramotor microlight training), the pandemic allowed me to decide to declare my status as an artist photographer and independent professional.
But becoming an aerial photographer or calling yourself an image professional cannot be improvised!
The microlight is an alternative between the drone and the helicopter. Its operating cost is low and its carbon impact small. My on-board equipment allows me to fly over restricted areas, which has contributed to my reputation and professionalism in areas of the south of France such as Toulon APP, the Le Luc R95 or flights over a natural park with authorisation.
Placing my work within an artistic approach is something I am determined to do.
My business ethics and personal values have always steered my work towards the environment. As the initiator of the eco-responsible flight concept and of many reflections on sustainable development within the FFPLUM, I still cannot understand why this theme is so neglected, so rarely championed and so little supported. Yet the environment is today at the heart of our society, our activities and our businesses.
To offer an artistic reflection on this theme in my département, the Var, I chose to put on an exhibition of 39 of my aerial photographs, selected around a range of the colour palette. Each one illustrates environmental issues while showing that nature is incredibly beautiful. The photographs are taken locally, which allows visitors to identify the places and bring global issues down to a local scale. But no photograph would be anything without the comment written by the author to go with it, accompanying the work with a reflection on three readings of the image and informing the visitor about the place where it was taken.
The “Palette Terre de Provence” exhibition can currently be seen until 30 November in the cloister of the Cathedral at Fréjus, which belongs to the Centre des monuments nationaux, a partner of the exhibition.
Today, on all my flights, I cannot fail to see some trace of pollution from the sky. I constantly witness a greyish haze above a built-up area, long traces at sea, multiple pieces of debris and illegal dumps, solar farms, power stations and electricity pylons, the growing area of excessive urbanisation taking over agricultural or forest heritage, the drying of soils and watercourses, and so on...
My approach is not to photograph environmental disasters, or clichéd images of our collapse or our overconsumption, but to show that all beauty contains a share of ugliness. Overconsumption of images makes us post far too many photos on social networks, whose automated filters inhibit our gaze and cheapen our perception of beauty.
In the sky, a novice passenger or trainee pilot will find the view “magnificent” and say that “everything is beautiful” seen from above. So let us simply keep passing on the dream of Icarus in the eyes of enthusiasts, let us defend our flying activity, carried by a more eco-responsible image and values, and let us keep looking at our planet from the sky with wonder, through the eyes of a child.
