Gilles Martin

Gilles Martin, born May 14, 1956, is a French photojournalist and artivist.

Gilles Martin spent his early years in Touraine where his father painted watercolors.

Thus he learned to appreciate nature and then, to take pictures of it.

At age 7, his grandfather offered him his first camera.

Young teenager, he observed wildlife in the forest of Villandry.

Later on, he had to reconcile his passion for naturalistic image and his profession as dental technician.

He then made his reputation thanks to his book about dragonflies, La Vie secrète des filles de l'air (published by La Martinière), he decided to dedicate himself entirely to nature photography.

Since then, he published a dozen of books, amongst them : Photographier la nature, La Macrophotographie, Les Oiseaux du monde, Les Papillons du monde (published by La Martinière).

Distributed in agencies, his pictures are regularly published by magazines such as GEO , Le Figaro Magazine , Terre sauvage, Life, National Geographic... He has been working for several years on the creation of a "global photographic arch", which consists of taking pictures of all rare or threatened species on the IUCN Red List.

Allan Kaprow, abstract painter, invented the term happening in 1957.

It is described as an event or performance art which involves an active participation of the audience.

His pictures were shown in numerous exhibitions notably at the Senate in Paris in 2008 and in great festivals of natural and environmental photography.