“I have infinity within my reach, I see it, I feel it, I touch it, I feed on it and I know that I could never exhaust it. And I understand my irrepressible revolt when I see nature suppressed: My infinity is taken away from me. Infinite wretch, you will think, than he who can die by the hand of man. A small thing, a very small thing: voluntary respect for nature. Fragile good will when everything pushes us to exploit it without measure. A small thing too, life surrounded by the immensity of death, a precarious union of rare conditions, a miracle like the functioning of an organism that is disrupted by the disruption of a tiny part. This is the crux of my experience, everything I said before was only a preamble, what I say afterwards will only be deduction.
It surprised me, then irritated me, to see that it did not seem as clear and decisive to my friends as it did to myself. Still, I said to myself, what if I give them a pencil and ask them. to reproduce an image that they believe they see clearly in themselves, they will be well borrowed. They will perhaps say that they cannot draw due to lack of manual skills, that they do not have the “hand”, the “stroke of the pencil”. A pencil, however, is very easy to handle. If Leonardo da Vinci drew a perfect circle or if Japanese painters trace a hair-thin line with a brush, Renoir painted his last works with a brush attached to a hand cramped by rheumatism. I have often made sketches after hours of lying in wait, shivering and chilled, full of cramps, my hands numb. They don’t know, I told myself, that learning to draw is simply learning to see.” Excerpt from And Nature? Reflection of a painter by the Swiss naturalist Robert Hainard
The naturalist Robert Hainard and the ornithologist Paul Géroudet inspired the photographer Vincent Munier. He made his first hides around the age of 12 to approach wild animals.
Later, a horticultural worker, mason, photojournalist, he worked odd jobs to finance the purchase of photographic equipment. Encouraged by several successes in the “Wildlife Photographer of the Year” competition organized by the BBC, he decided in 2000 to devote himself exclusively to wildlife photography.
In 2022, he received the César for best documentary film for The Snow Panther co-directed with Marie Amiguet.
The news of Vincent Munier :
On the lookout From May 4, 2024 to March 9, 2025 Royal saltworks of Arc-et-Senans • Grande Rue • 25610 Arc-et-Senans
In the forest with Vincent Munier Temporary exhibition from February 16, 2024 to April 27, 2025 – Musée des Confluences
