Solitudes I & II (2-Volume Set) [English / French]

About this book

Language: Bilingual in English and French

These two books showcase Vincent Munier’s photographic work in two original formats: a vertical tome and a horizontal one.

Mysterious shadows and delicate portraits, silhouettes moving in the mist and hidden beasts punctuate these two reveries on paper. Two complementary books composing together a bright picture of the vast solitudes, sublimed by thoughts selected by Matthieu Ricard, a Buddhist monk, photographer and writer.

Solitudes I rises to the sky. Our look is guided along the tree trunks and through the branches. It tumbles down with a waterfall, falls like the snow and follows with bliss the subtle line of the seaside or the contours of rocks...

Solitudes II caresses the earth. The horizon becomes the architect of each image and invites us to get lost into the storm, to merge with the mountain crests or the whiteness of the ice field… to contemplate infinity.

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Biography

Vincent Munier lives in the Vosges, where he was born and raised. Passionate about wild nature, he chose photography in order to express his dreams, emotions and encounters. Inspired by Japanese photographers and painters, he loves minimalist art: “As a man of image, I try to materialize a poetic intuition of reality and to share it.” The poetry of his images surpasses his masterly technique, and the atmosphere of his photographs eclipses their subject. His encounters on icy and desertic territories reflect a quest for solitude and for the challenges a man can be confronted with into the wild and within himself. Three times he won a special prize at the international contest BBC Wildlife Photographer of the Year.

Matthieu Ricard is a Buddhist monk, author, translator and photographer. After his first trip to India in 1967, where he met some great spiritual masters from Tibet, he completed his Ph.D. in cell genetics in 1972 before moving to the Himalayan region. He devotes his life to the study and practice of Buddhism, following the teachings of the greatest Tibetan spiritual masters of our time, and he has been the French interpreter for the Dalai Lama since 1989. He is also part of over 130 humanitarian projects (education, health) with Karuna-Shechen, the association he created. For many years, he has been photographing landscapes, spiritual masters and people of the magnificent Himalayan region.