“I had a dream: to travel the world with my camera”.
In 2002, after a Masters degree in business and marketing from AGRO ParisTech, Franck Vogel decided to set off round the world without a penny, with only his backpack and his Canon camera. Over the course of a year, he took dirt tracks and roads, sailed seas and oceans by means of transport worthy of Jules Verne (dugout canoe, sailing boat, truck, camel, bike…and his legs). His main goal was to meet human beings.
After one year of hitch-hiking, 8000 pictures and a fabulous human adventure, he decided to jump into photojournalism. This “180-degree” life change was a new challenge as well as an awakening in his personal life and the part he wished to play on Earth.
Franck Vogel works as a freelance photographer on social and environmental issues. In 2004, in Albania, on assignment for Patrimoine sans Frontières (a French NGO dedicated to preserving endangered cultural heritage sites), he depicted the restoration of unique Orthodox churches in Voskopojë as well as the last of their founders, the Aromanians. This work has been shown in France and Albania in exhibitions, conferences, books and well-known magazines (Le Monde 2, Courrier International,…). In Ukraine, he took photos of Crimean Tatars and their tough post-soviet return to their motherland after having been deported by Stalin in May 1944. Since 2007, he has focused on the unique relationships between Nature and Human beings to show the World that it’s possible to live in harmony. Most reportages depict the worst, Franck decided to bring hope. In India, his most recent story on the Bishnois, ecologists since the 15th century, illustrates it in the best way. This work has been published in March 2009 in GEO magazine for its special 30th anniversary issue.
Bishnoi story: http://www.franckvogel.com/uk/photo/portfolio/reportage/bishnoi/bishnoi.htm
My last work in B&W about the “Albino Killings in Tanzania” made the cover of NRC Weekblad.
Portfolio: http://www.franckvogel.com/uk/photo/portfolio/reportage/albino/albino.htm
An interview (in French) has been done at VISA pour l’Image 2009 to denounce that horror nobody cares for:
http://www.photographie.com/magazine/publication/105587/fr/index.html
The work on Albino killings has been short-listed for the SCOOP Festival Photo Awards 2009, and will be exhibited at the festival in Angers (France) from 16th to 28th November.
AWARDS (Bishnoi reportage):
- WINNER International Environmental Award PLANETE MANCHE 2009
- Honorable Mention – Prix de la Photo de Paris PX3 2009
- Best story awarded by France 3 TV News “SOIR 3”
Bishnoi story featured on CPN:
http://cpn.canon-europe.com/content/btl/franck_vogel.do
Interview in French with Jean-Luc Marty, GEO France’s editor in chief, about the Bishnoi story:
http://www.photographie.com/?pubid=105370&secid=2&rubid=8
