“I like to magnify these animals because I like to move by the beautiful”

MI-June, the association Nouvelle Eye, chaired by Philippe Stimaridis, launched the first edition of the Estivales Photo de Saintes with several exhibitions disseminated in the city. The images of the guest of honor, Laurent Baheux, are still visible until September 13 on tarpaulins suspended on rue Alsace-Lorraine and rue Victor-Hugo, and at the Imagin’art gallery, 25 rue Saint-Michel. Le Poitevin, 55, led a conference there on Saturday August 9 at 4 p.m. (1). Interview.

Where does your taste for the photo come from?

I started as a sports without sportsman at “Press Center”, in Poitiers. Very quickly, they asked me to take photos. I got a taste for it on the field, a good school, first by sport and then on local news. As the newspaper had big needs in pictures, I switched to the photo and stopped writing. I made fifteen years of sport photos by offering my services to sports agencies. I covered 15 Rolland-Garros, the Olympic Games, that kind of big events.

How did you come to focus on animal photo?

I had managed to make a place for myself in the world of sport. But I who grew up in the tranquility of the POITEVINE countryside, I saturated with Parisian life and the crowd of the big stadiums. I felt the need to refocus on essential things. I went to East Africa, to give me breaths. A friend who organized an event in Collioure offered to exhibit, which I had never done. I saw people’s gaze on my work, I didn’t imagine moving as much by proxy. This is where we measure the power of the image. In five years, I gradually dropped the sport to devote myself to animal photo, with a dissemination in gallery and in works.

Your claw is a work on black and white. Why this aesthetic choice?

I am old enough for having known argentics, in the 90s. At the time, all the pages were in black and white. I learned everything from the photo in the silver lab. I kept this taste. The great masters of the photo worked in black and white. I am self -taught, that’s what fueled my gaze.

You magnify nature. Isn’t it betraying reality, cruelty, the difficulties of life in savannah?

I like to magnify these animals because I like to move by the beautiful. After spending more than twenty-three years to photograph them, what is mainly emerging is that life is peaceful in the savannah. The moments of cruelty are ephemeral. Apart from moments of predation, we really have this feeling of serenity. My work went to that, in contemplative mode. These are the moments of grace that I remember.

In 23 years, have you seen nature deteriorate?

It is a sensitive subject. Like everywhere, Africa does not escape it. When the white man arrived, in the 19th century, it was thought that the resources and the workforce of animals were unlimited. There were indecent hunting paintings. Then there was the creation of national parks. Today, the human population nibbles the territory everywhere. Fortunately there are these protected territories, but the withdrawal increases.

Your lions and gazelles have been around onlookers since mid-June in the pedestrian streets of Saintes. Do you like this way of exposing?

It’s pretty nice, these outdoor exhibitions, free, open to everyone, to reach the public, to raise awareness. This exhibition is doubled with another, at the Imagin’art gallery, which brings together three components, Africa, the Canadian and European Arctic, and the horses in freedom.

“I don’t know if in five years it will still be my job. You have to try to trust youth to invent tools that will allow new things to do ”

You come back to a conference on Saturday August 9. Is that an exercise that you appreciate?

Photographer is a lonely profession, especially when you photograph nature. Being able to share with the audience live is always nice.

At a time when everyone takes everything and anything in photos, what future do you see in this discipline?

I avoid asking myself the question! It has become so easy to take a photo. Experience photographers tend to think that they have added value, by building coherent work. But it is more and more complicated, indeed. I don’t know if in five years it will still be my job. You have to try to trust youth to invent tools that will allow you to do new things.

(1) Free by reservation before Thursday August 7 at 06 60 42 13 18 or [email protected]. Photographer’s site: www.laurentbaheux.com.