My name is Guilhem. I am from Toulouse, France.
Since early childhood, I have been a naturalist at heart. By naturalist, I mean that I enjoy exploring, observing, and understanding nature more than anything. Following this passion, I studied ecology, and soon after completing my studies, I decided to volunteer for scientific missions. These various projects mainly aimed at studying and protecting the rapidly declining biodiversity all over the globe.

These appointments led me to live and work in incredible, remote wild places – mainly tropical forests – where I would daily see natural wonders that only a few lucky people have witnessed. Realizing that, I thought this was worth being shared and that is how I came to photography in 2015. I started it as I was living in the deep, mysterious forests of the immense Congo basin studying bonobo behaviour, following them daily in their environment. I spent one year in the middle of the jungle with a bad zoom lens, a moldy old book on photography, a lot of time to observe, and nature offering infinite inspiration. I had everything I needed to start my new passion and it quickly turned out to be the best tool I ever had to express and share my vision of life.

Since then, images became very important to me. I discovered that it was also a great way to communicate with people and sensitize the public about environmental issues.

Our lives have become more and more frantic, always out of time, we always have to be faster, more productive, the leitmotiv is « growth » and indeed, the upcoming disaster is growing. My photography follows the opposite philosophy. With my pictures, I want to show how important it is to take the time to observe what surrounds us, reconnect with our environment and to understand it, to be conscious and respect all the living beings that share the planet with us. If my photography had only one aim — other than the joy it brings me — it would be to awaken or stir people’s curiosity and interest in nature, as a first step leading to respect and to protect our environment. Once you understand nature you can only respect it and want it preserved, and a true understanding means accepting its mysteries and the fact we can’t control or know everything.

Artistically speaking, I don’t aim at technical perfection. I don’t plan my shootings for the perfect image. I don’t look for the spectacular. However, I use light and environmental elements to create a composition that emphasizes the chosen subject.

My approach is simple: I like to take the time to wander out in nature, as discreet as possible with alert senses, observe and look for the details, ready to capture anything that would catch my eye. I like to think that nature is the artist, I just learned how to read its creation and use photography to immortalize a selected part of it according to my perception. The subjects are everywhere, it’s all about patience, observation, and composing/improvising with the given elements.