French photographer Jean-Paul Bourdier’s images are described as more than just photography. It is also painting, poetry and performance art as each image is a scene that is created, staged, captured and designed to evoke thought in the viewer. Without any digital enhancement, Bourdier’s photography combines natural landscapes with the human form, enhanced only by colour, motion and perspective.
From 2012 to 2015, Bourdier set out to capture images featuring the Earth and the human form. The images are meant to fluctuate between moments of clarity where all elements appear to be unified, and more problematic moments which relate to the limitations people are faced with. Many of the images focus on a most common human desire - the longing to experience true freedom.
“It is often in the collision between the infinity of Life and the plans made by one's finite thinking mind where humour is birthed. Humour is something I try not to overlook; I enjoy creating with it,” adds Bourdier.
His collection will fill the pages of a coffee table book called, BODYSCAPES II: Theatre of Life after his Kickstarter campaign is complete. The latest edition comes after earlier successful projects, BODYSCAPES and LEAP INTO THE BLUE.
On the title of his latest contribution, Bourdier says, "We have a deep link to every part of our environment. Each page of this book is intimately related to the creative practices and innumerable aspects of our being on this Earth. I have always held a passion for discerning the poetic or dramatic or the “intangible” through photography, and in this book, you will experience this, as well as my affection for observing the vicissitudes and joys - the "theatre" - of our lives on Earth.