Orchids

Symbol of life through the oxygen it releases, the plant world is now suffering from the ravages of human activity. Everywhere, natural heritage is affected. More than half of the forests that populated the planet at the beginning of our era have disappeared at a rate that has significantly accelerated in recent years.

In charge of nature conservation, the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Habitat (IUCN) even estimates that this movement generates degradation 1000 to 10,000 times higher than a major geological period of extinction. Carrying away thousands of unknown or barely studied species in its wake.

As a tool for testimony, an imprint of a disappearing time, photography appears as the indispensable medium for the discovery and valorization of many plants, the living organism most threatened today. Out of the 270,000 species of plants listed - it is estimated that there are over 10 million actual living species - more than one in ten is endangered. Peter Raven, director of the Missouri Botanical Garden, asserts that we lose 100 plant species every day.

A true icon of plant biodiversity, orchids represent a family entirely apart, a sort of culmination, a kind of pinnacle of evolution, where each one competes in ingenuity to ensure its growth and reproduction, where evolution has created the emergence of forms, scents, cooperations, and biological behaviors entirely unique among flowering plants.

More than 75 million years old, they are found on almost every continent of our planet, from the polar circle to the equator. They alone represent more than 10% of all plant species currently listed, of which one in four is endangered.

These images aim to be a contribution, a tribute to nature in order to raise public awareness of the diversity, ingenuity, and fragility of these plants in their natural environment.