Corinne Vésy

One summer solstice in the 1960’s I first saw the day in rural Fribourg canton and it is there that I grew up and there I still live. Neither my academic aptitudes nor any encouragement from my family pointed to an artistic career, even though in my youth it was always me that was asked to take pictures at family gatherings, birthdays, and other events. With my first paycheque I treated myself to a Canon AE-1, a film SLR camera, but it wasn’t until much later that I truly fell in love with photography. My younger brother, who left this world to join the stars much too soon, left me his digital SLR camera, the EOS 5D, with a 24-70mm lens.

Was that a sign? In any case, I took it as such. Other signs, including ones from nature and from animals, joined with that one, all seeming to indicate that this was my path. Time spent outdoors filled me with joy and nourished me. Nature and photography together gave rise to a passion for reproducing in an artistic way all the beauty and life that surrounds us.

I therefore took time out to train, to study, and to observe. Having a real aversion to instruction manuals, I chose to acquire my learning in the field. I quickly understood that the age of photography as I had known it was over. A camera body and a lens no longer sufficed to produce beautiful pictures; the touch-ups that were done with a paint brush in the days of film were now done with a photo editing application. So I fumbled and groped, trying to understand this programme called Lightroom that was supposed to help me improve my photos, but which also often got on my nerves.

I have been regularly doing nature photography for six years now. It is a never-ending apprenticeship, for I am still getting to know my camera. Little tips, tricks, and new ideas come to me and I try to put them into practice. Nature photography, for me, is communion with life and, even more than the fact of having succeeded in making a great picture,  it is this feeling of communion with life that buoys me up with every photo shoot.