Philip Payne
Artist Photographer

Born in France to an English father and a French mother, Philip Payne has always been a photographer. At a very young age, he was able to benefit from a professional photo laboratory and the use of his father’s cameras. He worked in the late 60s and early 70s in professional studios and laboratories in London and Paris as well as in a press agency. He quickly realised that creative photography would not allow him to make a living and that he did not want to spend it taking catalog photos, working in the press or as a paparazzo.

In the mid-70s, he had the opportunity to turn to music and worked as a sound engineer. First of all, in the Netherlands in Amsterdam at the Paradiso, world-famous venue, this during the Punk period and the beginning of the New Wave and then on tour with Dutch bands such as Herman Brood and his Wild Romance in Holland and Germany.

In 1986, he decided to return to France where he practiced his profession first in Nice and then in Paris where he worked with many various French and international artists, as well as on live TV shows and festivals, Printemps de Bourges, Montreux Jazz, or Paléo festival in Switzerland.

With the advent of the internet in the early 90s, he quickly became involved in new technologies with the creation of websites and search engin optimisation and was for many years DMOZ editor.  In 1999, he created a successful start-up and decided to make a professional reconversion as webmaster.

In 2000, he moved to the south-west in the department of the Lot where he is still active, with some clients for nearly 20 years. The creation of a website requires photos, he took back his camera and since then has not stopped taking photos for his sites and for pleasure with many exhibitions in the area.

In this beautiful region, still quite wild, he photographs to the rhythm of the seasons. Returning to the same places, always looking for the unusual with beautiful lights, atmospheres and colours. All year round, the changing scenery is a permanent spectacle.

A real happiness, these moments of fleeting light that arrive and disappear we do not know how: the morning mist, the rays of the sun, the course of the clouds in the sky, the mysterious lights and shadows on pastel colours.

Inspired by great landscapers such as Constable, he works with a Nikon Z72 mainly with a 70/200 zoom in manual with a reduced depth of field and focused on one element such as a branch a leaf a blade of grass, or a ray of light.
These photos were taken in the Lot region in the Thèze valley, on the heights of Cavagnac, around Saint Martin le Redon and Bonaguil (Lot et Garonne) as well as the Dordogne.