GARD The Cévennes magnified by Boisberranger

Launched in the mid-2000s in Nîmes, the Alcide publishing house is dedicated to Languedoc around two major themes: history and photography.

Jean du Boisberranger has traveled the whole world and practiced aerial photography from Mustang to Papua, from Ethiopia to the United States, from Europe to Latin America, collaborating with the biggest newspapers, from National Géographic to Géo and Animan, among others. Then, in the 1990s, he settled in the Cévennes.

For Yann Cruvellier, the founder of Alcide editions, “ After having captured the entire world in his lens, this renowned photographer settled in these mountains during the 1990s. Since then, he has tirelessly traveled this territory which he has slowly become immersed in. »

Alcide editions have brought great photographers to express their talent in the region. Several works have left their mark on regional publishing: Cévennesby Mario Colonel, internationally renowned photographer; Montpellier, Uzes or Aerial Cévennes by Jean du Boisberranger, who has traveled the whole world for the biggest publications (National Geographic, Geo, etc.), Camargue or Cévennes Lights by Thierry Vezon who now exhibits all over the world but also the photographers Michel Verdier and Yann Guichaoua who in turn have left their mark. Everyone writes a history of this territory in their own way.

« The choice of photographs – some you have seen before, but few – is his. He tells us his look, the colors and their harmony, the seasons, the beauty of abstraction – water, bark, flowers – trees, flora, life – children, people at work.. It is a book of great beauty and unique sensitivity. The Cévennes seen from the inside, “the trip of a lifetime” to repeat the words of Jean du Boisberranger » says Yann Cruvellier.

Thus and in this magnificent workJean du Boisberranger recounts a trip to the Cévennes: the heat of the South in summer, the harshness of winter, the green of spring, the explosion of colors in autumn, the stone, the water, the trees, flowers but also the men and women who shape these mountains. A magnificent recognition.

And the author? For him, photographing the Cévennes is a long journey as this modest country does not easily reveal its wonders.

For Jean du Boisberranger, “ At seventeen, pure chance made me hitchhike through this region whose name was unknown to me, leaving a sort of calling within me. So I returned there by moped but an episode in the Cévennes stopped me dead in my tracks, having barely arrived at the first foothills of Saint-Hippolyte-du-Fort. A few years later, it was a crossing in a 2 CV and finally a tour of the Cévennes on foot where, getting lost, I discovered an isolated farmhouse which seemed to me like a paradise on Earth. I will understand later that my fate was sealed at that moment »

The taste for travel took him around the world, photography as a pretext, as a means of communication and means of existence. Jean du Boisberranger spent fifteen years with my camera, jumping from one continent to another on intense but superficial journeys.

« At forty, I was ready to go and find out about my “earthly paradise” which obviously had to be in the Cévennes. It was easy, the first visit was a good one: an abandoned farmhouse half in ruins. Acquiring it was more complicated. Bringing it back to life, another story. I was going to start discovering the Cévennes. I had to learn to photograph the Cévennes, this sea of ​​mountains, this labyrinth of valleys where behind each bend a new landscape appears. The Cévennes do not suffer from a quick glance, I had to go there, I had to live there. I learned patience, I learned to photograph over time. Traveling the same roads, walking the same paths, the same paths, discovering others. I tirelessly returned to the same places in order to capture the light that would reveal them. »

Being a photographer of the Cévennes implies for him experiencing the Cévennes. The Cévennes became his trip. Photographic journey. Journey of life.

176 pages in 24 x 28 cm format at the price of 29 euros, to buy the book, click here.