Eric Dragesco
BIOGRAPHY
I was born in 1954, in the outskirts of Paris, where I lived until the end of my medical studies. All my holidays, however, were spent in Switzerland and that’s where I gained my love for mountains and for the great variety of animal life there. It’s also in Switzerland that I met my wife and where, together, we decided in 1985 to live. We moved to Gryon in 1990 and we have three children.
At the end of my studies I decided to make a profession of my passion and, strange as it may seem, have never practised medicine since. All my life I’ve been a man of pictures, still or moving, and have always found drawing to be an enjoyable complement to that love.
In 1995 I published “La Vie Sauvage dans les Alpes” (Wildlife in the Alps), which received four prizes and has remained a useful reference book. My works have achieved distinction in numerous contests, notably that of the BBC and several times in Montier-en-Der. In 2014 I published another book, entitled “Instants Sauvages” (Wild Moments), which received two prizes. In both books I included drawings based on my photos.
In 1998 I started making videos and made ten documentary films about animals for television. In 2012 I finished “Sur les traces de la Panthère des neiges” (In the footsteps of the Snow Leopard), which was awarded the Diable d’Or at the FIFAD (Festival international du film alpin aux Diablerets or International Alpine Film Festival in Diablerets, Switzerland). In 2018 I completed “Au Pays de l’Ours Isabelle” (In the land of the Isabel Bear), filmed in Tajikistan. I have also made two films about sled dogs together with my sister, Isabelle, who is a professional musher, and another on the subject of Alpine fauna.
Over the past twenty years I have come to prefer moving pictures to still ones and so have turned to film-making, which I do entirely on my own. It’s hard, I know, but I enjoy the challenge. I am my own producer, cameraman, and sound engineer, and do my own editing, calibrating, and mixing. It is also my voice you hear in commentaries.
Artistic approach
I’ve always had a passion for wild animals and especially for those of mountainous regions, mainly in the Alps, but also in the Himalayas and in Alaska. I wanted not just to watch animals, but also to bring pictures back home to show to my family and my nature-loving friends.
My aim has been to share the beauties of nature with a wider public and help people understand the importance of protecting all forms of bio-diversity. This has become all the more important in recent years!
My attraction for endangered and seldom photographed species led me to make seventeen trips to Mongolia, central Asia, and Ladakh between 1998 and 2013, seeking for some of the rarest mammals on our planet, such as: Gobi bears, of which there are only twenty left, Snow Leopards, wild camels, the Siberian Ibex, Kulan, Kiang, the Himalayan bear, Markhor, Marco Polo sheep, and so on … I consider that an important step towards the preservation and protection of these species lies in making them known to the general public.
COPYRIGHT INFORMATION
Re-Visionary symbol: I leave my work free of copyright so that it can be shared among people who wish to reproduce it in the spirit of the Collective, as long as they indicate me as author.
Copyright symbol: I am the copyright holder of my own works: my work cannot be reproduced, except by the Re-Visionary Art Collective, under the conditions as indicated above in point 1. Unless I give my written consent.