The photographer behind Avocette

Avocette is the project of a French photographer who flies airliners for a living. That profession shapes a particular relationship with sky and light: years spent watching cloud layers, high-altitude twilights and stars from the flight deck eventually train the eye — and breed an obsession with perfect conditions.

On the mountain side, the images are made in Haute-Savoie, around the Mont Blanc massif: sunrises over the Aiguille du Midi, reflections on Lac Blanc, ibex and chamois in the Aiguilles Rouges. All wildlife photographs are taken in the wild, with no baiting and no disturbance — patience is part of the picture.

On the deep-sky side, the astrophotography is done from a personal observatory in the Oise, near the Compiègne forest in northern France. Two instruments take turns there: an RC10 telescope at f/8, with a two-metre focal length, for galaxies and compact objects; and an FSQ apochromatic refractor for large emission nebulae. Each image accumulates dozens of hours of exposure, often spread across several nights.

One principle connects these two worlds: never invent. No replaced skies, no signal added in processing, no animal approached beyond what is reasonable. What the prints show truly existed, as is, at one precise moment.