The Essence of Our Well-Being

Tom Girondel

2018 — France

About this series

The coastal populations are cradled by tides and storms. Each rising tide soothes the feelings and each ebb tide, in its fall, reveals ephemeral remains, metaphors of the darkest questionings. Helped by a changing and always surprising light, the latter are transformed into fragments. 

This appeasement coming from the shoreline has been my starting point; there I dissolve my anxiety. I explore coastal pieces, in order to collect and bring together a typology of reality. To fragment all its elements by exacerbating their forms – illuminated by a light braving the eternal coastal winds – to the point of making them abstract, and open up a full range of emotions. 

Photographer: Tom Girondel
Nationality: French
Based in: Nantes, France
Website: www.thomasgirondel.com
Instagram: @tom.girondel

Thomas Girondel was born in the city-port of Le Havre, France and is a 34 years old geographer and former coastal disasters officer working as a freelance photographer. 

During the spring 2014, Girondel spent several weeks in Ukraine where he documented life in the midst of a conflict zone with his analog Fujica camera. His work “Reaching Donetsk” was exhibited in a solo show at the gallery Espace Cosmopolis.
In 2015 and continuing in 2016, he recorded various protest movements, both in Nantes, France and Germany that he contributed to the AFP Pool.
He returned to his roots as a geographer by reporting on Seattle’s water-based community. His work was exhibited at the Congress Hall of Nantes on the occasion of the World Actors Climate Summit Climate Chance in 2016.
He completed an internship as a photo editor at Le Monde French newspaper in 2017. He has been recently published in the Financial Times, the Süddeutsche Zeitung Magazin, DOMUS, L’OBS, NEON and VICE.

He is based in Nantes, France and available for assignments worldwide.