Human-Nature Cohabitation

Our species (homo sapiens) is the ultimate descendant of a genus (homo) that appeared on the African continent several million years ago. As evidenced by the many works of cave art (drawings, sculptures) scattered across Europe, Asia and South America, homo sapiens gradually colonized all the Earth's continents. Shortly after the end of the last Ice Age, homo sapiens became sedentary: domesticating herds of sheep and cattle, selecting various seeds, cultivating the land, extracting from the soil and plant cover the materials needed to erect monuments, settlements - and then cities, linked by communication and trade routes. The following images retrace some of the stages in the human epic.

sous-menu Life on Earth : Introduction|3.5 billion years of evolution|Human-Nature Cohabitation>The Anthropocene

« Energy sobriety »

This photograph was taken on a full moon evening from Revel (Haute-Garonne, Occitanie). As our natural satellite made its appearance over the Montagne Noire, the orange-colored disk turned into an ever-diminishing lamppost. Read more ...

« It was an April 26 ... »

This photograph was taken on a spring day - April 26 to be precise - from the city of Revel (Haute-Garonne, Occitanie). It shows a vast cumulonimbus cloud at the foot of the Montagne Noire. An opportunity to remember the Chernobyl accident that occurred a few decades earlier. Read more ...

A cumulonimbus cloud at the foot of the Montagne Noire

« Laurac in Lauragais »

This photograph was taken on an autumn day near Laurac (Aude, Occitanie). This small medieval village was built on a hill overlooking the Lauragais, the ancient Pays de Cocagne to which it gave its name. Read more ...

« Meditation »

This photograph was taken on a summer evening, on the shores of the Lac du Salagou (Hérault, Occitanie). It shows a fisherman on his boat. A cloud in the shape of a phylactery reveals his innermost thoughts. Read more ...

« Drop shadows »

This photograph was taken on the summer solstice in the cloister of Saint-Papoul Abbey (Aude, Occitanie). It shows a series of shadows cast on the pillars. Their layout and shapes are an invitation to the imagination. Read more ...

« Saissac over the centuries »

This photograph was taken in spring, in the wooded foothills of the Montagne Noire (Aude, Occitanie). It shows a medieval castle, the oldest of them all, and one of the largest as well: the Château de Saissac. Read more ...

« A long way ... »

This photograph was taken on the shores of the Lake of Saint-Ferréol (Haute-Garonne / Tarn / Aude, Occitanie). This walk through the bare trees is an opportunity to question the passage of time, to take a look back at our young (and not so young) years. Read more ...

« The space curvature »

This photograph was taken in the Lauragais region (Tarn, Occitanie). It shows a field whose slope reflects the local relief. It's an opportunity to examine the curvature of our Earth, its division into parcels whose contours and curvature define the main axis of ploughing, sowing and harvesting. Read more ...

The division of the Lauragais into parcels

« Summer clouds »

This photograph was taken on a summer evening, in the Lauragais region (Tarn, Occitanie). This vast plain is home to a large number of crops - some of which are grown on a sustainable basis. The others, far more numerous, require frequent irrigation due to the lack of suitable weather conditions. Read more ...

« Resist! »

This photograph was taken on summer in the Lauragais (Tarn, Occitanie). It features a conifer surrounded by brooms. Vestige of a distant past, memory of the Lauragais plain, of its many steep hills once covered with moor, broom and pastel flowers shining lemony. Read more ...

« The Ice Age »

This photograph was taken on the shores of the Lake of Serviès (Tarn, Occitanie). The reflection of sunlight on the surface of the lake gives it the appearance of a glacial tongue. It's an opportunity to take a look back at the Ice Age that swept across Europe starting from 1275 BC. Read more ...

« Lauragais Color »

In spring, some Lauragais hills adorn themselves with a glittering yellow clothing with lush green stitching. Reminiscence of yesteryear, evocation of a past era, of a fallen reign - that of the pastel, cultivated on a large scale in the Midi-Toulousain under the Renaissance. Read more ...

In spring, pastel flowers cover the Lauragais hills

« A stairway to heaven »

This photograph was taken on a winter evening from Loubens-Lauragais (Haute-Garonne, Occitanie). It shows nebulosities arranged in a staircase in the setting Sun. Read more ...

« Renewable ? »

This photograph was taken on a winter evening, after the Sun had disappeared behind a wind farm (Tarn, Occitanie), tinting the sky with that characteristic pink color. Read more ...

« Moai »

This photograph was taken at the Château de Durban-Corbières (Aude, Occitanie). This stony window panel evokes the statues of giants that ancient peoples erected along their seafronts, overlooking the horizon. Read more ...

A window of the castle of Durban Corbières

« One and the other »

This shot was taken shortly before sunset on the evening of the winter solstice. The low-angled light floods the Canal du Midi, of which the Seuil de Naurouze photographed here (Aude, Occitanie) is the highest point located on the dividing line between the Atlantic and Mediterranean waters. Read more ...

« Egyptian bust »

This photograph of a painted wooden Egyptian bust was taken at the Musée Champollion in Figeac (Lot, France). Its exceptional longevity has already given it a certain eternity - at least on a human scale. Read more ...

« A feeling of incompleteness »

This photograph was taken at the Musée Saint-Raymond in Toulouse (Haute-Garonne, Occitanie). It shows an anthropomorphic statue excavated from a Gallic sanctuary in Vieille-Toulouse. Its unfinished nature would nevertheless suggest that it dates from the Upper Palaeolithic. Read more ...

An anthropomorphic statue on display at the Musée Saint Raymond

« The sword and the rock »

This photograph was taken in the Sidobre (Tarn, Occitanie), a rocky enclave that has been fractured by vegetation and dissolved by rainwater for millions of years. It's an opportunity to explore the famous Excalibur myth, with the trunk of a pine tree representing the sword stuck in a rock. Read more ...

« Hereafter »

This photograph is the result of the superposition of two shots taken in Toulouse (Haute-Garonne, Occitanie). Together, they depict a funerary Egyptian bark sailing across the sky towards our Sun. An opportunity to explore the ancient Egyptians' myth of resurrection. Read more ...

An Egyptian bark sailing across the sky towards our Sun

« The philosophical stone »

This photograph of the Vaour dolmen (Tarn, Occitanie) was taken on an autumn evening. The sky is dotted with whitish streaks, those traces of water vapor contained in aircraft exhaust fumes, which form a Greek letter called psi. Read more ...

« Runway to the stars »

This photograph was taken on a summer evening from Villemur sur Tarn (Haute-Garonne, Occitanie). It depicts a submerged bridge which, like a tightrope walker, allows to cross from one bank of the relatively fast-flowing Tarn to the other. Read more ...

« Le Rouge et le Noir »

This photograph was taken on a summer evening, not far from the village of Bruniquel (Tarn et Garonne, Occitanie). The glowing sunset in this stormy sky is an opportunity to evoke the passionate, impetuous nature of the main character in this Stendhal's novel. Read more ...

« Artist's Impression »

This photograph was taken from the medieval village of Puycelsi located on the edge of the Grésigne forest (Tarn, Occitanie). It shows a sunset in the Autan wind. Small touches of color, ranging from orange-red to pale yellow, are deposited on the clouds that it has previously scattered. Read more ...

« In weightlessness ... »

In this black-and-white shot taken on a summer evening, the church in the village of Bozouls (Aveyron, Occitanie) appears suspended in space, frozen in time. Immutable. Timeless. And yet ... Both the inert and the living are, in time, destined to disappear. Read more ...

« Two thousand years of history »

This halo of artificial light reveals one of the most ancient remains of the city of Toulouse: a fragment of rampart made of red bricks, white stones roughly hewn and pebbles from the nearby Garonne. The construction of this enclosure is contemporaneous with the development of the city under the reign of the Roman Emperor Augustus. Read more ...

« Contemporaneity »

This photograph evokes two paragliders in close formation around a bright spot. More than veils or wings, these are actually arcades which consist of an assemblage of bricks or limestones. Wood beams also adorn this vault which partly covers one of the alleys of the medieval town of Castelnau-de-Montmiral (Tarn, Occitanie). Read more ...

« Candèla per la nuèit »
(Candle in the night)

This photograph of the Cité de Minerve (Hérault, Occitanie) was taken on a summer evening through a red filter. From the ancient medieval city built atop a natural fortress do only remain today the ramparts and the candle, i.e. part of the wall of the viscontal castle of the thirteenth century. Read more ...

« Golden sky or starry sky ? »

This photography was taken on a summer evening from the village of Rennes-le-Château (Aude, Occitanie). It shows the light pollution generated by a few artificial lights in the sky over the Pic de Bugarach. Its harmful effects on flora and fauna are now well documented. Read more ...

Light pollution over the Pic de Bugarach

« Myths and Legends »

This photograph was taken on a summer evening from the road leading to the small medieval village of Bruniquel (Tarn et Garonne, Occitanie). Wisps of mist from the nearby Aveyron Gorges hang over the « old castle », giving it a dramatic, a fantastical appearance. Read more ...

« Lighting the Sky »

This photograph was taken on a summer evening from the village of Rennes-le-Château (Aude, Occitanie). It shows the light pollution generated by a few artificial lights in the sky over the Pic de Bugarach. Its harmful effects on flora and fauna are now well documented. Read more ...