Raymond Depardon

Raymond Depardon, born in France in 1942. Depardon began taking photographs on his family farm in Garet at the age of 12. Apprenticed to a photographer optician in Villefranche-sur-Saône, he then left for Paris in 1958.

He first joined the Dalmas agency in Paris in 1960 as a reporter. Then in 1966 he co-founded the Gamma agency. Reporting from all over the world. From 1974 to 1977, as a photographer and filmmaker, he covered the kidnap of a French ethnologist, François Claustre, in northern Chad. Alongside his photographic career, he also began to make documentary films: 1974, Une Partie de Campagne and San Clemente.

As part of an initiative by the Fondation Cartier for contemporary art, Depardon made an installation of films on twelve large cities. Shown in Paris, Tokyo and Berlin between 2004 and 2007. In 2006, he was invited to be artistic director of the Rencontres Internationales d’Arles. He has made eighteen feature length films and published 47 books.