Anne Petitfils is a French Photographer who shoots soulful photographs of countryside. Being a photographer, Anne does enjoy to travel a lot as well as document various culture and people. From her words “Taking pictures is my way of understanding what’s around me. Following my instinct, without a clue at first of what I am looking at, I photograph to slowly discover the why and how of things, from the inside.”

About Anne Petitfils

I have always been fascinated by images. I enjoy picking them apart, analyzing them, understanding how they are organized, and looking for their meaning—after surrendering to the emotions they stir in me.

However, my passion for photography is relatively recent. It started with my first trips to the Orient. As I was discovering a new world, I realized that, to understand what I saw, I needed to take in the details, from the most ordinary to the most intimate ones. I feel that it’s through the microscopic that I understand things. Not surprise, then, if I teach visual communications at Université des Sciences Humaines de Montpellier.

Taking pictures is my way of understanding what’s around me. Following my instinct, without a clue at first of what I am looking at, I photograph to slowly discover the why and how of things, from the inside.

This was my state of mind when I took these photos. Photography has literally become a way of life for me. Not only is it a mean of expression, of understanding myself better, but it’s also a way for me to maybe get a better understanding of the world around me.

Many of these pictures were taken in India and more specifically in Zanskar, an Himalayan kingdom I fell in love with it a few years ago.

Zanskar and the Zanskarpas have had a decisive influence in my life and profoundly changed my vision of the world—my behavior too (most importantly!). They made me understand that our urge to specialize made us lose sight of our reality. We have become unable to see the links that exist between things, between people, and between things and people.

And it is those links I am looking for when I travel and photograph. As Henri Cartier-Bresson so aptly put it, I strive “to align the head, the eye and the heart”.

“Watching Anne in action, you see her take everything in, slowly, at the same time instinctively and deliberately. You get the sense that it is not her mind or her eye that guide her, not her heart either, but maybe her intuition that something is happening there, something worth understanding, whether it is a person, a landscape, or a busy street scene. She takes her time to connect with her subject and to design her image and come up with a composition that is much more than pretty. Her images are powerful and elegant, and served by a light-handed processing that enhances without exaggerating.” – Marine Armstrong

Click on the image for better and enlarged view.


Les curieux, Atholi

 


Les Joueurs, Atholi

 


Making chai, Phuktal

 


Moine cuisinier, Karsha

 


Abi, Paldar Valley

 


Le petit prince, Sani

 


Rouge, Karsha

 


Le fumeur, Orchha

 


Jeux d’enfants, Agra

 


Image d’Epinal, Paldar Valley

 


Pastorale, Khajuraho

 


Fumerolles, Islande

 


Par dessus les montagnes, Zanskar

 


Djulle, Photoksar

 


L’enfant, Padum

 


Dream, Zanskar

 


Le cuisinier, Phuktal

 


Fillette, Testha

 


Namaste, Agra

 


Au Spectacle, Karsha

 


Portrait d’un jeune Gelugpa, Krasha

 


Technology fascination, Karsha

 


Visite, Testha

 


Une vie de labeur, Khajuraho

 


La petite cuisinie¦Çre, Pidmo

 


Phuktal gompa, Zanskar

 


Catch the sheep, Scotland

 

You can find Anne Petitfils on the Web :

Copyrights:
All the pictures in this post are copyrighted Anne Petitfils. Their reproduction, even in part, is forbidden without the explicit approval of the rightful owners.