Olivier follmi bio
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Olivier Föllmi
Introduction
THE WINDING PATH TO WORLD KNOWLEDGE
Olivier Föllmi is not trying to document the lives of the people he visits around the world. He is on the search for higher ground, for what connects people to their landscape where they have put down their roots. It is a path of intense insight – into the basic correlations in the widest sense among people, nature, and religion – that determines his life as a photographer.
Together with Danielle Föllmi, who was an internationally practicing doctor and today conducts sociological research, he has been transmuting the experiences gained over long and intense travel and the spiritual heritage of humanity into images since Olivier Föllmi: “I try to reflect the intensity of a moment shared. And that intensity starts when the notion of time disappears. The more intense the moment, the more time seems less important. My photos are therefore timeless. When you’re up on a mountain, at one with naturlig eller utan tillsats , the perception of
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Olivier Föllmi
(february 28, , Saint-Julien-en-Genevois, France)
Olivier Föllmi is a Franco-Swiss photographer. Particularly known for his photos of the Himalayas, especially Zanskar and Tibet and its inhabitants. He married Danielle Föllmi in , with whom he adopted 2 children Zanskaris Tenzin Motup and Tenzin Diskit and 2 Tibetan children Yvan Tharpa Tséring and Leonore Pema Yangdon.
Winner of a travel scholarship, he went to Afghanistan at the age of The following year () he left and discovered the Zanskar region. In , he and his wife cared for two children of a peasant couple in Zanskar to take them to the nearest school, in Leh in Ladakh. They will then spend 14 days in the deep canyon of the Zanskar River in winter. Le Fleuve Gelé tells the story of this trip, which was also the subject of an award-winning photo report on World Press Photo. Winner of a travel scholarship, he went to Afghanistan at the age of The following year () he left and discovered the Zanskar region.
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Biography
A traveller’s life ÃÂ
In , I discovered Asia at the age of 18 when I followed the trail through the centre of Afghanistan and went up the Panchir valley to climb the Mir-Sa-Mir ( m). This adventure from a different age was to decide my destiny: for the next twenty years, I travelled the Himalayas on foot, as much in love with the mountains as with its inhabitants.
In , I discovered Zanskar, a Tibetan valley in India, one of the most isolated inhabited regions on earth. For the next fifteen years, I spent my time between Zanskar and the West, learning much from the values of both worlds. I was looking for adventure and, as such, spent four winters in Zanskar cut off by the snow. This included a winter stay at Phuktal monastery metres high, where Tashi Tundup, its spiritual leader, taught me that in each person the Buddha has planted a seed.
As a guide in the Himalayas for the travel agency ARTOU based in Geneva,ÃÂ I visited Zanskar each year.ÃÂ Zanskar was