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Jonathan LHOIR
An experienced photographer with a professional background in nature conservation, Jonathan is above all a passionate naturalist. With a degree in forestry and environment, he has acquired strong skills in many disciplines such as entomology, ornithology or botany.
For more than 10 years, Jonathan has been artistically exploring nature photography. Through hard work, knowledge, obstinacy and patience, his approach has allowed him to find his own style, his coherence, his signature. In constant evolution, he progressively moves away from the "figurative" photographic approach to blossom in the personal shooting privileging his imagination and his creativity.
Today, as a professional photographer, Jonathan offers nature photography trips and courses in France, Europe and a few other more distant destinations. He also uses photography as a medium to communicate his commitment to the protection of nature. Lecturer, jury member, exhibitor, author of various books, his photographs are also awarded and published throughout Europe.
FLAMINGO
Artistic variations on the flamingo
Jonathan has been photographing the Camargue for many years and has accumulated a wealth of images of this region, and more particularly of its emblematic pink flamingo populations.
Enthused by his first encounters with the species, he was inspired by the silhouette, the colours and the way of life of this unusual animal.
Initially driven by a more illustrative and aesthetic approach, he was soon charmed by a more subjective, less conventional approach, which gives pride of place to the imaginary and to suggestion. This innovative preference in his artistic career first took shape with the creation of a series of resolutely blurred images representing the flight of pink flamingos at dusk. Seduced by the result and determined to deepen this artistic bias, Jonathan gave free rein to his desires to progressively move away from a figurative rendering and experiment with several techniques. If they are not revolutionary in themselves, they have allowed him to move away from a faithful rendering of reality. It is notably through slow shutter speeds, shifted focus, or the play of foregrounds and backgrounds that Jonathan has been able to establish his own style and express his poetic vision.
Working on the "blur" was then obvious.
Jonathan's motivation was twofold: the very idea of revisiting the "great classic" of the flamingo and a personal challenge that was, to say the least, exciting in many ways. For example, the photographer had to undergo a necessary adjustment phase in order to refine his different vision of reality. Secondly, he concentrated on identifying the new elements of his environment that would become his future photographic sources while projecting himself into what they might yield. And finally, even if there is an element of spontaneity, the exercise is not as easy as it seems and it forces to find the delicate and complex alchemy that mixes creativity, rigour and perseverance.
As a means of expression and a medium to materialize his vision, Jonathan has used photography to sublimate and share those moments invisible to the naked eye. Through his images, the photographer approaches the pink flamingo from an atypical angle that puts the softness of its silhouette in the foreground.
Flamingo is the fruit of this photographic approach, the materialization of this progressive drift towards the immensity of the blur, a quest for a return to simplicity, showing only the essential... or the "super-blur"!
