Biography

Always in search of a magical light that gives all its value to a landscape and to the people who inhabit it, Philippe Bourseiller travels the great natural spaces of the planet with his Canon. For nearly forty years now, he has been working on the great nature of our planet to create a true photographic memory of the Earth. These landscapes never stop changing and photography, as a form of memory, is one of the best instruments to follow their evolution and better understand their upheavals and the permanent adaptation of the people who live there.

In 1983 he joined the staff of France Soir Magazine. It was his first approach to color, all subjects are covered: news, people, sports, expeditions…. From 1987 to 1990 he became a member of the magazine department of the Sygma agency and gradually moved towards what would become his favorite field: nature. In 1991, he decided to become a freelance photographer in response to his desire to specialize in nature and environmental subjects. His first report on the eruption of the Pinatubo volcano in 1991 oriented an important part of his work towards the world of active volcanoes.

Philippe Bourseiller is a field photographer, knowing how to be at the same time a mountaineer, a speleologist, a diver…, his experience allows him to evolve easily in the extreme universes he is in contact with, and to bring us back rare images. Recognized worldwide for his mastery of light, color and composition, his work has been awarded several times by the prestigious World Press prize and a Visa d’Or at the International Festival of Photojournalism in Perpignan. He regularly collaborates with major magazines: Géo, Paris Match, Figaro Magazine, Stern, Life, National Geographic…. and has published more than twenty books translated into several languages.

Several large exhibitions have been presented in the world.

 

I work by themes on the Earth with the goal of a great book, a beautiful exhibition and collection prints. I like to go in search of the most beautiful light that will sublimate a landscape, the light is my painting, nature its canvas, my eye simply tries to seize the moment of the magical meeting between these different elements. I don’t transform reality, I simply capture the moment. The photo is very superficial in its first form, it is the reflection of an emotion, but if it can provoke in the person who looks at it this same emotion, and even better a reflection and sometimes an action, then it has its reason to be.

I hope that my photos will help people to become aware that these extraordinary landscapes that surround us are extremely fragile and that they require permanent protection. The human species is the only species in the animal world to destroy itself, and it also destroys its environment, yet essential to its survival. Nature gives man his true dimension, his greatness while showing him his fragility in front of the elements, like volcanoes. The life of a man on a geological scale represents strictly nothing, yet the traces he can leave behind him can be incredibly destructive.