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Jean-Gabriel Soula

@jeangabrielsoula

Landscape photographer based in the Pyrenees

I fell in love with the mountains when I was six years old. I was amazed by the beauty, purity and immensity I was looking at. I left the paths to discover the hidden corners and the little details. I traveled up and down the mountains of my childhood, the Pyrenees in the southwest of France and the north of Spain, first hiking and later on climbing. After doing that for quite a few times, I wanted to see other mountain ranges, discover a different type of beauty. My interest grew quickly and I wanted to see everything; besides mountains I wanted to know desserts, oceans, the seas… I always chased the beauty of nature and I often went alone. It was hard to tell about what I had seen during my travels to my relatives, so I started with photography when I was 15 years old. Then, after my studies in Pau, in the southwest of France, I left to the Alps to work and to get my certificate as a mountain guide.

"I got passionate about the botany of the mountainous ecosystems, geology, wildlife and anything related."

I started to mentor my clients from the guided hikes in the Alps, and then in 2002 I decided to combine my two passions, hiking and photography, and began to organize photography workshops for my clients. They asked me to take them further away every year, which resulted in Naturavista, my business with which I organize photographic travels to and within Iceland, Italy, Finland, Norway, Kirghizstan, Spain and France.

"I came back to the Pyrenees in 2006 and installed my base in the middle of the mountain range, in Saint-Lary Soulan."

Essential for me was to share my love for nature and photography, to teach and share composition techniques and to show a way to move within a natural environment, enhancing exchange and living exceptional moments together with my clients all around our passion. Being able to speak French, English and Spanish allows me to travel easily and to educate different nationalities during my workshops. This combination and diversity is very enriching. About 80% of my work is the organization of my photography workshops in the mountains or abroad: so it’s a combination of guiding and photography. 

I will definitely keep doing classic hikes, but my priority remains with the photography workshops because the approach is very distinct. We depart from extraordinary places with an artistic dimension and it’s not just about watching the beauty, it’s about searching for it and highlighting it, giving value to it. My guiding experience enables me to explain people about the things they are capturing, such as the geology of the mountains and the plants and their functionality.  I believe that we can achieve a much better result if we know about the subject we are photographing. 

One of my goals for my clients is that they get technically autonomous when talking about photography, that they learn different strategies to create and secure the right conditions when photographing. That means, for example, physical conditions in terms of equipment, health and endurance and also the condition of light; to calculate and understand the most interesting hours to get the best shots and knowing how to recognize photograph worthy places or compositions. My other and very important goal is that they live unforgettable moments.

"I have, and also stimulate, particularly genuine and humane relationships within the groups and with people we encounter during the trips. The majority of my clients have become very good friends."
"Everyone who photographs, will discover over time what photography means for them, getting it clearer step by step and becoming able to convey that with their photographs."

I’ve been asking myself for quite some time what photography really was. At some point I found out that for me, it was ‘the word that I couldn’t find to express the feeling I had within’ when I was there, facing a landscape, a flower, or a waterfall. It’s a powerful feeling, exciting, intoxicating… I try to make that feeling the subject of the image. How I achieve that? I guess it’s a combination of a few things. First of all, there is the place of choice; we go to a specific spot or we find something by coincidence. After, there’s the hour and the timing, because light changes and embellish everything. Then there’s the weather, something we can’t control. I habitually go out photographing anyway, because good or bad weather, the nature is always beautiful. 

"Nevertheless, the most important in my opinion, is what we have within ourselves."

I’ve a strong sensitivity, my eyes are still the eyes of a kid. I can feel tears of joy and happiness coming when contemplating an incredible landscape. I love searching for and living intense moments and I believe that sensibility and curiosity are the motor of everything. I see nature like a mosaic, our world is like a mosaic… everything constitutes of important details that we can’t subtract or remove. All these details together create the togetherness and the balance within this togetherness; in our universe as well as in photography. And all these details are of importance, they allow creating and rhyming an image, guiding the eye in photography. The camera is a source of curiosity, it obliges you to search and not to just see. We discover many more things through photography, it stimulates the brain and it gives you the desire to make that what we see even more beautiful.

Jean-Gabriel Soula
"Immensity is not only found in landscapes, which, if you think about it, are also the details of something bigger. Immensity is found in every very small thing... And it is found in their aesthetics and in the emotion they provide."
Meet Jean-Gabriel Soula

Our world is surprising with its magic and its beauty, and you have to make time to see it. Because only the one who takes the time and the effort will discover it. The role of human on our planet, in our own existence, is complex and hard to understand. On the one hand, I am positive because of the actions we take to protect the extraordinary nature the planet has. On the other hand, I am furious when I see that our especie, human, are the ones destroying and weakening the ecosystems we are depending on. It’s like a man sawing the chair on which he sits, or set his house on fire to warm himself. 

"But at the end, I have no choice but to be optimistic, I can’t give up. Our societies are too much based on speed, Men is caught in this whirlwind and doesn’t stop to really enjoy, to watch, to breathe ... Slowness is a virtue for me."

With my photography, I essentially want to show the beauty of things. I want to make people who see my images realize that everything that surrounds us, in the natural environment, beyond their vital importance, is a aesthetic monument … My objective is to provoke emotions, and if possible to provoke emotions similar to the ones I felt when I was taking the photo. I think that the most important thing that photography has taught me, is the thirst of curiosity, the insatiable desire. The desire to see, to know, to find… 

"Curiosity is the most important motor in live, in my opinion."

I can’t understand how we could live without, because it’s that what makes us advance. Photography helped me to maintain my eyes from childhood, a view that’s always amazed by the things that surround me. Photography also contributes to my balance, because it allows me to completely empty myself. I only focus, when I am alone, on this goal which is to merge what I see and what I feel … When I am with my clients, I concentrate on transmitting that to them. And being part of their progression, is an incredible enrichment. 

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