Jean Malaurie was an explorer and founder of the famous Terre Humaine collection, inaugurated with his book “Les Derniers Rois de Thulé”, published by Plon, who died on February 5, 2024 at his home in Dieppe.
He was a French ethno-historian, geographer specialized in geomorphology and writer. He was director of studies at the École des hautes études en sciences sociales.
“A portrait is a serious act. It’s a ‘seizure’ of the other. And there’s a quasi-religious gravity among the people during these transactions. There is a visible difference between shots taken with or without the tacit agreement of the man, landscape or object photographed. What makes a photograph valuable is the accepted ‘communion’ between photographer and photographed.”
Hummocks : relief de mémoire : tome 1, Nord-Groenland, Arctique central canadien / Jean Malaurie. – Plon, 1999. – (Terre Humaine Collection)