About the Artist
Valentin Elian Petiard was born and raised in Nice, in the south of France, and has been practicing landscape photography for purely artistic purposes for 10 years.
He started at the age of 13, wandering on the beaches and in the villages of the French Riviera during sunset. He has always enjoyed capturing the magical and colorful atmospheres, and spends hours enhancing them in post-processing.
In recent years, Valentin has focused on his collection "A Golden Journey", with the main goal of inspiring others and conveying the beauty of the French territory and other fabulous spots around the world under the golden light.
Debut.
“When I was 13 years old, I remember seeing my older brother always carrying a camera with him and taking pictures. I was fascinated by what he was capable of doing with it, playing with settings to capture his unique vision of reality. One day, he showed me something truly amazing with his camera - long exposure photography. As you may have noticed, humans are mimetic creatures - everything we do, think, and learn is through imitation. So, I started taking my mother's white camera to experiment with my own vision of reality.”
Discovering & Playing.
“Instagram was a very huge source of inspiration for me. I discovered landscape photography thanks to amazing artists on this platform at a time it was mainly dedicated to art and photography. I used to play a lot with the white camera anywhere, cities, villages, beaches, forests... Sometimes in unexpected places, like dirty or "ugly" streets and I was laughed at for that. I am extremely grateful to have traveled all around the world at a young age while learning photography. From USA & Cuba, to Japan & Thailand passing by Senegal and most West European countries, it truly helped me open my eye, get watchful and creative.”
Lost in Practicing.
“After two years of fun and discovery, the party was over. I experienced a long period of uninspiration. I always had my camera with me when traveling, but I had no consistency in what I was creating. I didn't know what to shoot, how, where, or when, and I lost the desire to go out to take pictures. I had no clear goal or artistic identity, and I didn't really like any of the photographs I was taking. This period lasted for five years, and I even stopped taking pictures for an entire year, thinking that my photography was just a temporary teenage hobby and that life would take me in a different direction.”
The Rebirth.
“I will always remember those magical first days of spring 2021 when I was living in Strasbourg, France. I literally woke up in the mornings with mysteriously tons of creativity and inspiration to get back to photography. I knew I wanted to create something that would resonate like a colorful trip. It was also the time when I rode my bike 2 or 3 hours a day in the sublime French Alsace countryside. For the first time in years, I took my camera and started chasing the moment of the day that makes me feel otherworldly, which is the Golden Hour.”
Sense & Coherence.
“I remembered my goal was to create something coherent, making my different photographs talk to each other, where each image is not a new project, but another piece of color replying to an older one and adding a new layer to a story. I wanted to bring sense and coherence to my photography. I started spending a lot of time shooting at golden hour, as well as bringing a consistent artistic direction to my post-processing. Additionally, I started shooting only when I was inspired, and I stopped putting pressure on myself to create quantity. I also found out that I was mainly Inspired by natural environments rather than cities. It changed everything, and within a few months, a fabulous Journey began.”
A GOLDEN JOURNEY
