Jean Guichard

Jean Guichard (born April 28, 1952 in Paris ) is a French photographer who is known for his lighthouse pictures.

Life

Guichard spent most of his school holidays with his grandparents in the Morbihan department . Since he was fascinated by distant countries, he did his military service in the navy . He came to Newfoundland and Greenland , among others , where he bought his first Nikon , which he financed by selling photos to the crew. He is a member of the " Amicale des Anciens Marins " (comradeship of former sailors).

He then joined the PR office of the Ministry of Economic Affairs as a photographer and in this capacity accompanied the minister at the time on his travels, which enabled him to gain experience in the field of photo reportage.

From 1977 to 1984 he worked as a photojournalist for the Sygma agency , for which he created many reports and a series of celebrity portraits, for example by Eric Tabarly , Jacques Chirac , Jacques Delors , Marie-France Garaud , André Giraud , François Mitterrand , René Monory .

The versatile artist provided the agency with travel reports (Africa, Argentina, Antarctica, Australia), covered sporting events, international news, war incidents and the like and placed his works on the front pages of renowned press media such as Le Figaro Magazine , Paris Match , VSD , Newsweek , Time , Colorful , Star .

In 1989, Jean Guichard and several colleagues founded the GLMR agency, which ceased its activities in 1995 after the economic crisis of the 1990s. He also started photographing lighthouses in the late 1980s . He achieved world fame with the seven photos of the French lighthouse " Phare de la Jument ", taken in 1989 in the Finistère department in Brittany during a storm at wind force 10 . They show how a wave hitting the tower threatens to seize the lighthouse keeper Théodore Malgorne. Malgorne had mistaken the sound of Guichard's helicopter for the rescue helicopter and looked out the open door. He realized his mistake in time and withdrew before the wave could crash over him. The work earned Guichard second prize at the World Press Photo Awards ( Press Photo of the Year).

Guichard published the first book on lighthouses in 1992 under the original title "Phares" by Ouest-France . It has received several awards. This was followed, among other things, by two photo books on Egypt from the publisher Solar .

Guichard continues to deal with the subject of lighthouses. His pictures of the Breton lighthouse Phare de Kéréon are also known ; they are often printed in a series of three images, in the course of which a wave collapses at the lighthouse and envelops almost the entire length of the tower.

literature

• Jean Guichard, Vincent Guigueno (text): Lighthouses. Edition Maritim, 2007. 272 ​​pages. ISBN 3-8922-5575-X (also French, Italian)