This article follows French photographer Edouard’s journey from childhood sketches to a career in aerial photography. His unique style led to a photo book on sports from above and several 2024 Olympic exhibitions, including one in Paris labeled part of the “Cultural Olympiad” by Paris 2024.
I drew a lot when I was a kid and was a portrait artist until my 20s. I was also deeply into creating videos and digital art. As far back as I can remember, I’ve been passionate about imagery.
When I got my first drone in 2017, I discovered photography. That’s how my photographic journey began—with aerial imagery, which eventually became my full-time job. I gradually added ground photography to my portfolio, and now I make a living as a full-time travel and aerial photographer.
Travel has been part of my life since I was a teenager – as soon as I came of age to travel alone, I jumped into the first plane to New Zealand, then Japan, followed by the USA. Discovering new places, cultures, and putting my artistic vision on them is what drives me. As an outdoor/aerial photographer, my main lesson is to have an open eye on what surrounds you. Even the most ordinary scenes can become spectacular from above, and I don’t need to travel miles to find beauty. It is amazing to shoot fascinating landscapes and scenes with a drone around the world, but I always keep in mind that my artistic vision can be applied everywhere, even to simple places.
For the image that won the Best of the Week, I didn’t have to travel far either. My family lives near this beautiful beach in Les Sables d’Olonne, France. I visited them, and on a cold February morning, I decided to shoot the sunrise on this beach with my drone. The sand looked golden and smooth in the sunlight, and the rocks were shining. I decided not to include much water in the shot and instead focus on the golden sands. Some life was needed for the final touch of the shot, so I decided to walk on the beach, leaving my foot trails and casting a long shadow.
I love the vertical vision, the top-down view, of aerial shots. It gives such a unique perspective. I wanted a minimalist shot with only my shadow as the main subject and a high position to show that I was surrounded by sand, so that is how I positioned the drone and composed the image.
In addition to my top-down style, I like to have vibrant colors and to increase the light naturally present in the image. Linear filters helped me to increase the lights and shadows on the sides of this image.
I also really wanted the gold tones to pop to get the impression of feeling the warmth of the sun when looking at the image. To get the colors and the feeling as I wanted them, I spent a lot of time on color grading. Masking was also an important step as I wanted to give volume to the usually “flat” top-down shot.
There is so much you can do with top-down shots, and at some point, I started capturing sports from the sky. This turned into my most important photography project; my book “Le sport vu du ciel” (sports from the sky) is my first photo book, which was published at the end of 2023. It was released everywhere in France and received critical acclaim. This book gathers more than 200 photos of various sports that I took with my drone. More than 20 sports are represented, and all of them were shot by me using my top-down technique. I played with shadows, minimalism, and geometry to create a piece of Art and show that sport photography can also be artistic. It took me four years to achieve this, and it was a real achievement to see it in bookstores.
This allowed me to have several exhibitions all around France in 2024 for the Olympics, including one in Paris that got the “Cultural Olympian Label” by Paris 2024, and I was published in many magazines thanks to this project. I am proud of this project that I conducted from A to Z, and that took so much energy. This has opened a lot of doors in my photography career, so I am really thankful for that.
In the years to come, I would like to continue what I am doing today: making a living from travel, aerial and sports photography, and hosting photography workshops in many countries. I want to keep improving my photography skills and show my artistic vision of what surrounds me. Most of all, I want to share my passion for exploration and photography — to inspire others to pursue what truly excites them, just as I’ve been fortunate enough to do.
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