MATTHIEU RICARD

I use photography as a source of hope, which restores confidence in human nature and revives our awe at the natural world around us.

MATTHIEU RICARD

Buddhist monk and neurobiologist, Matthieu Ricard is also a photographer and author. He has shared the grandiose beauty of the Himalayan region with us for many years. Born in 1946, he travelled to India for the first time in 1967 and met on this occasion remarkable masters of the Buddhist Tibetan tradition. A life spent in this intimate space has allowed him to capture, through his lens, the masters, landscapes, and peoples of this isolated region of the world, and to paint a magnificent portrait of it. Matthieu Ricard is the author of many photographic books, including The Spirit of Tibet, Himalayan Buddhist, Tibet: Gazes of Compassion, Motionless Journey, and Monk Dancers of Tibet and Bhutan: Land of Serenity. His photographs have been exhibited in New York, Paris, Perpignan, Winterthur, Stockholm, and Hong Kong. ... See more See less

Interview

Why photography?

I aspire to use photography as a source of hope, which restores confidence in human nature and revives our wonder at the splendours of nature. Images of violence and suffering are necessary to awaken consciences and inspire our determination to intervene and assist; we should never lose sight of the potential of inner beauty that is present in each one of us. As for me, I would like to show the reality of good, the fact that most of the time, most of the seven billion human beings behave decently towards one another.

Your inspiration ?

I’ve much studied and admired the work of the great photographers of the past, Ansel Adams, Ernst Haas (his masterpiece The Creation in particular), Galen Rowell, and many others. I also greatly admire the artworks of the great German painter Caspar David Friedrich of the early nineteenth-century, who seems to me to be a precursor of landscape photography. On a personal level, I was very close to Henri Cartier-Bresson, but there is no way I would have the pretention to compare my work to his, all the more so in that I took a very different approach. I also maintain very amicable relations with Jim Brandenburg, Vincent Munier, and Yann Arthus Bertrand. Also, I’ve been lucky enough to meet some other great photographers over the years.

What is unique in your photographs ?

An “expectation without expectation”. Always staying available, contemplating everything that presents itself with a fresh and attentive eye. And then a magic moment occurs and, as Henri Cartier-Bresson used to say, “The photos take me and not the other way round.”

Any anecdote for us ?

Sometimes, there are images that I seek far away. When I was 16, I saw an emblematic photo of Ansel Adams: a lake with rocks in the foreground, taken with a view camera, with great depth of field and a mountainous backdrop. In Bhutan, forty years later, having seen a photo of the Tsophu Lakes, I walked for four days in the mountains to find a similar scene, with a 7,000-metre high mountain in the background. The next morning at dawn, the lake was like a mirror and I took a photograph similar to that of Ansel Adams, in tribute to this great photographer. It was well worth four days hiking!

The picture you would have loved to shoot ?

One day, in Kolkata, India, I saw a man go past who was pulling a wagon with some difficulty, with the horse following it attached by a rope. I still have this image in mind, but not on film. It was in 1968 and I didn’t have my camera near to hand.

Your motto ?

Transforming oneself so as to better transform the world.

The latest prizes / awards / prides you got ?

My finest reward is being close to my spiritual masters or in the tranquillity of my hermitage opposite the Himalayas.

Your next projects ?

Remaining in awe of human nature and the world’s wilderness and capturing beauty when it arises.

Any crush on a YK picture ?

The images of Alexandre Deschaumes, a young photographer I met at the International Wildlife and Nature Photo Festival held in Montier-en-Der.

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