The Lorraine country is one of my favorite place doubtless because I was born there and because I know most of the secrets. Know the environment where we evolve is essential when we want to merge in the nature to observe better and photograph the private life of the animals which populates it. The succession of the seasons in the same place is a delight for eyes and camera because we are going to find the same subjects under lights and different behaviors.
With time and knowledge, I always have some thing to observ depending the weather or the season. We know often better the behavior of the lions and the elephants than that of stone martens and dormice of our countries, that is why I attach a lot of importance for the photography of this small fauna and than my next work will be doubtless dedicated to it.
The Andean highlands .
The night was difficult, the lack of oxygen and the cold does not facilitate a repair rest. I push aside the pieces of the tent stiffened by the night-frost. The position up made decrease my headache, the "soroche" which drills you temples as soon as you are in horizontal position.
The spectacle is breathtaking and I forget fast my misfortunes to admire the sunrise on mountains. The smoking warm springs form a curtain of vapor and a flamingo cuts its silhouette from this thêatre of shadows; summits grow pink before the first sun reach the spotless area of the salar.
I exchanged the telephoto lens for a wide angle lensl, attaching me to fix the unreal atmosphere of places before the sun crushes the landscape. If I planted my tent as height as 4400 metres on the high Andean trays, it is because I run after an animal tracks of which I tracked down yesterday evening on the geometrical tiled floor of the deposits of borax.
It is then that she appears, far off. Ghostly shade on the horizon, appearing and fainting according to the panaches of vapors. It is her that I wait for, the vicuna, a cousin of llamas and alpacas which graze more low in the valley. I watch the silhouette approaching and growing in my camera.
The animal is wild and will not approach my camp, I have to content myself with general views.
A noise of cavalcade in my back, a small troop of vicuna tumbles down the hill in the morning light, instinctively, I revolved the objective and followed their running, taking advantage of lacks in vapor to press the button. The cold disappears at the same time as smokes of springs while the sun bombards its UV multiplied tenfold by whiteness of the ground.
Vicunas disappeared and I occupy my morning with photographing the avifauna, rare James flamingos find here a magnificent lanscape for their flights in squadrons and the giant coots bustle to improve their always unfinished nest. A tinamou drives its gang of chiks through the ardent stone before grouping together in the shade of a bush.
In the afternoon, I find a male vicuna. He sniffs at the ground and picks some plants. He is apparently on his territory and gains a hillock of dropping to add it his contribution, the mountain of excrements forms an olfactive and visual barrier for the other camelidae.
Another male approaches and starts the immediate pursuitcontinuation of the owner of places. That this returns to the jog trot with the pride of the accomplished duty.
The last beams of the sun again allow me to admire graceful animal, beams cut the fine silhouette hemming the fine fleece of a golden border, the vicuna is allowed approach enough for a last portrait.
Even if the night looks cold, these some photographic feelings warm my heart.
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