Forgotten Places

 

« What’s the good of liberty if there’s no free space on the map ? »
Aldo Léopold

Only the forgotten places against which we never declared war or with whom we decided to sign a pact of peace can give rise to this extraordinary paradox of an enigmatic disorder, a great confusion, coupled with an enduring calm, a prodigious serenity: the feeling that here everything is in its place.

As an urban citizen moved by an idealistic and contemplative vision of nature, deeply influenced by the native tribes as well as by modern era’s pioneers such as Henry David Thoreau, Edward Abbey, Rick Bass and François Terrasson, these « forgotten places » feel my dreams, my heart and my soul.

To explore them with a camera mounted on a sturdy tripod is one of the most powerful, significant and deeply meditative experiences that I have had the privilege to live. There is something indescribably intense about physically experiencing immersion in an old natural or primary forest.

This portfolio provides an overview of my wanderings in primary and natural forests in Sweden, Finland, Belarus, Croatia, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Montenegro, Poland, Scotland, Slovakia, Slovenia, Switzerland, in the Jura, in the mountain valleys of the French Pyrenees, Haute-Savoie and the Vosges, in different remote areas of the Balkans and the Carpathians Mountains of Romania as well as in the temperate rainforests of the Pacific Northwest, the Tertiary Era relict subtropical Laurisilva forests of the Canary Islands, cloud forests of Central America, Martinique, and in remote parts of the Rwenzori Mountains between Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Blending and immersing myself into these preserved and paradise places is like a journey back in time, a return to a forgotten past along with a journey to an imaginary but nonetheless inexorable future, when the trees and the forest ecosystem, left to their own free evolution and in the long time which is theirs, have regained their rights over all the excesses and omnipresence of humanity. And while perusing this gallery, my wish would be that you become aware of the immeasurable importance these places have for our well-being and that of our planet.

These precious places become essential landmarks to be preserved, and these images may be taken as valuable visual testimonies of truly untamed places unsullied by any anthropic consideration and human influence in the most beautiful aesthetic chaos that can be found....