Richard Feynman once said:
"Physics is like sex. Sure, it may give some practical results, but that's not why we do it.". *
I see photography in the exact same way. Photography to me is not about showcasing to get the highest amount of likes nor to domesticate humans on social media**. To me, it's about sharing experiences and unique perspectives of this tiny planet called Earth, especially for those who cannot afford to go to some of the places I’ve had the opportunity to visit. All this involves a lot of time, passion, patience, creativity and, above all, a good dose of inspiration - something that photography has in common with science, another passion of mine! One cannot create meaningful art without these basic ingredients, whether in photography or science (I consider the latter as an art, too!).
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But who am I, after all?
Well, for a start, I'm Marie-Christine Rufener, or just simply Marie!
I'm a Swiss-Brazilian biologist that was born and raised in a (very!) tiny village in Switzerland, and eventually moved to Brazil at the age of 14. Moving to Brazil was definitively a game changer in my life and I consider myself a very fortunate person for having had the opportunity to grow up in such rich, yet contrasting, cultures. It
made me see the world from an entirely different perspective and also shaped my way of thinking for ever.
Photography has always been part of my life, although it was not until I moved to Denmark in 2016 when I properly started to study the theory behind Photography in my spare time. At that time, I was doing a PhD and hence loads of effort was devoted to my study subjects. Nevertheless, whenever my PhD was getting too stressful, Photography was a solid way to give me some peace of mind.
As a Biologist pursuing an Academic career, I had to move quite a lot. First, for my Master’s (where I moved within Brazil itself), then for my PhD (Denmark), and more recently to Qatar. On top of that, I travelled to different places to attend scientific conferences and other matters related to academia. This all has inevitably confronted me to other cultures, widening therefore even more the way I see our surrounding world.
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What do I photograph?
Broadly speaking, travel photography. I have most affinity with landscape photography, where I like to imagine scenery untouched by humankind, or scenery that scales human to the vastness of nature's power. Apart from that, I also like the following types of photography:
- Wildlife
- Minimalistic
- Macro
- Architecture
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Credits
My constant travel companion has been my friend and husband, Felipe. Besides waiting patiently for me when I stop somewhere to take some shots (mostly he takes with him a book, haha), I always seek for his advice when it comes to selecting the best photos and when doing the post-processing.
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* There are controversies whether he really said that. In any case, I think this is a pretty cool quote whoever said id :).
** By human domestication, I mean the idea of creating specific habits to SM followers, such as creating specific days and time for posting content, etc.