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Joffrey Briaud
@joffrey_travelproject
Travel photographer based in France
It has been 2 years that I’m doing photography for real, but as far as I can remember, even as a kid, I always had a camera with me. As a kid I was taking photos of my animals, my home and my school trips and as a teenager I was shooting all my parties with my friends. Recently I realized that my enthusiasm for photography probably comes from my mother. She used to do photography when I was very young, and although I don’t really remember her photographing, at home she has always had lots of landscape photographs in frames and on the walls. I didn’t feel particularly motivated to buy a photo camera myself or to shoot until I went to the northern Norway for the second time. When I saw the northern lights for the first time I was enchanted and I wanted to see it again, so when I went back the year after I bought my first camera. These trips haven’t only triggered my interest in photography, but also in travel.
"Since then I felt an indescribable desire to discover more, to see what other wonders the world is rich."
"From then to now I have traveled quite a bit and I’ve become an adventurer."
I’m a seasonal worker so I’m moving very often during the year. My work as a bartender enables me to be in places where I want to be during summer and winter, and to travel the world during the months in between. For example, this spring I will go to Argentina for a month before getting back to work. Currently I live in the mountains in France, which is beautiful. I’ve always lived on the countryside surrounded by mountains and this is part of me but most probably I will move again the next month or year, who knows!? I like to go with the flow. I don’t really have a home now and that’s perfectly fine at this point in my life. I have my tent in my bag, I can live everywhere; I feel my home is wherever I go. Although I tried to live in Paris last year and that was an awful experience. For me cities are stressful, too fast and too sad. I need to be surrounded by nature, where life is calm and beautiful.
"Places where you have a lot of space and very few people. It’s just how I am and where I feel most happy; other people may have it the other way around but for me it’s like this."
Although I travel a lot and live in the mountains, I am not so much of a sports guy. The hikes I do are usually killing me, but my motivation for shooting sunrises and/or sunsets is stronger. So very often I go hiking for several hours through the woods and the mountains to the place I want to shoot and I put up my tent to spend the night. Even if it’s really hard and challenging to get there, it’s most of the time really rewarding. Not just because of the views and the photos I can get, but also the good night sleep. It’s a real moment of relaxation for me to sleep in nature, no one around, just appreciating the peace. Reaching these kind of challenging places on my own is very satisfying, especially knowing that I am not really a sports guy or having the best physical condition.
"It shows that anyone could do it if you are motivated enough."
Doing landscape photography definitely pushed me out of my comfort zone; walking a lot, hiking or climbing in either pleasant or very bad conditions. Rain, snow, freezing temperatures or strong wind… Sometimes the temperatures dropped so low that my water froze, so no way to drink for hours, and my wet shoes got frozen as well during the night, getting as solid as a rock. You can imagine the challenge when I was about to wear them the next morning… And sometimes, all the effort done is finally for ‘nothing’. Because obviously we can’t control the weather and it’s not seldom to happen that the conditions aren’t good enough to get the shot that I had in mind. After all, I didn’t know that I had this strength and willpower inside of me and because of photography I found it.
"Each time that I use it, I get this feeling of accomplishment; it makes me feel proud of myself."
It’s not that you can find my in the mountains shooting every second in any kind of weather circumstances. I am also working a lot especially during the high seasons and then my time to spend on photography reduces significantly. I do escape and practice whenever I can though and meanwhile I like to try out new things. I would say that I’ve tried at least a little bit of all kind of photography and a lot of techniques, but my favorite kind so far is definitely landscape, and shooting with wide angle lenses. Technically, I really love to work on long exposure shots especially with waterfalls or with the clouds. It gives a real smooth and dreamy touch to the photo, a little bit like a watercolor painting. This is really something that mesmerized me from the start. That and also astrophotography. I don’t do it as often as I would like to but I truly love it.
When it comes to editing, I have to admit that I enjoy giving a slight Orton effect at the end; it gives every picture a dreamy touch that I can’t do without now. In general, editing has been the hardest part of photography for me. I have been hesitating a lot about what I should do and what kind of style to take on: Keeping it natural or modifying it a lot. Seeing such amazing work in both styles from great photographers wasn’t helping. Then, one day, I read the caption of a photographer that I really like.
"He wrote that it doesn’t matter how you edit your shots, but that it’s about conveying what you feel yourself and giving others a good feeling when looking at the photo."
I found this to be so true and it helped me a lot. I was always thinking that I was doing either too much or not enough, doubting between the two and not feeling sure. By reading this I stopped asking myself those questions and began to listen to how I felt it should be, how I wanted the result to be. I am still inspired by other photographers and still apply things and ideas to my own edit, but I create my own style.
"The goal I have now is to give people the feeling of how I lived the moment and perceived the view, making people see it through my eyes."
Sometimes, to enhance the understanding of my photo, I write quotes in the caption that relate to my story and feeling behind the photo. I do not always have the words to explain what I felt while taking a shot and I just think that someone else, wiser or more poetic, could get those words I’m looking for. One of my favorites is “Happiness is only real when shared” by Christopher McCandless. My ultimate goal is to travel the world, connect with people and share experiences, keep capturing everything with my camera and share it with as much people as possible.
"Happiness should be shared."
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