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Julio Pendilhe
@julio.pendilhe
Photographer based in France
As far as my memory goes, I think I have always been fascinated by photography. My parents used to tell me stories while going through our family photos when I was little. I was captivated by the story each photo could reveal. The memories were brought alive and as a kid, my imagination was triggered. Because of my parents, I unconsciously learnt that an image was a vector of emotion and that each image, silent and static, is a real treasure that allows simple instants to become eternity.
"Growing up, I wanted to become a storyteller too. And that is how I started with photography."
In 1998, I was 8 years old and armed with a disposable Kodak, I pressed the shutter for the first time. Photographing my friends, my parents, my toys… Eventually my world, what surrounded me and what I loved seeing. I basically photographed stories that I wanted to tell. So I grew older teaching myself, photographing my daily life and developing the way I looked at my surroundings, without any rule. Still today, rules don’t restrict my imagery because, as with any kind of art, I believe that the only objective is to convey an emotion, a message.
"Like in love, it is not necessary to obey a formalism to transmit an emotion - everybody does it differently."
Travel only arrived in my life later on and photography naturally accompanied this new step and experience. The trip that certainly shook up my vision of the world was the one to the north of Thailand in 2016, where I stayed with a Karen family. It was special to live the daily rituals and habits of the Karen tribe, remote from civilization and in harmony with nature. Photography was a powerful tool here; it acted like an intermediary of hearts and broke the language barrier.
So, through travel I met populations with beliefs totally opposite from mine, whether in Thailand with the Karens, in Mexico with the Mayans and the Day of the Dead, or in India. I feel that every travel helps me grow, stepping toward a higher level whether it is on a personal and spiritual level or in my photographic work. As if all the travel choices I made were predestined for me.
"By learning about others, I ended up learning a lot about myself."
In a world which tends to globalize and in which we live in a frantic way, being confronted with other cultures and life paths becomes an incredible wealth. One of my personal projects is the creation of a documentary series on ethnic minorities. Like the great Jimmy Nelson, who is a huge source of inspiration, I wish to shine light on those men and women who stay true to their deep roots and origins and contribute to the diversity and richness of our planet.
Photography allows me to understand the essence of the world better, to respect and protect it. Thanks to photography I have started to search for those places I’d otherwise never have looked out for, and the travel itself made me aware of the environment in which I evolve as a person – it has made me more humble. For all these reasons I strongly believe that travel and all that comes with it, is the best school we can ever attend.
Even if I love photography in all its forms and genres, I’ve to admit that I’m particularly fascinated by shooting the cultures of groups of humankind, and nature. Maybe because these act as the two pillars of our world, and are more threatened than ever before. Cultures, ethnicities and indigenous peoples are gradually disappearing, caught up in the currents of globalization. And nature, in her turn strongly affected by global warming, slowly loses its essence.
"I feel that my higher objective as a photographer, besides artistic work, is to create in the name of memory and by that means, be a testimony for future generations."
My goal with my work is to transcribe emotion, bring out the atmosphere of a place while never denaturalizing the reality. As said in the beginning, a photograph for me is the beginning of a story and the reading resides in the eye of the one looking at it. As a photographer, I simply provide the cover of the book.
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