A yellow thread, a blue thread. The alliance of hot and cold. Woven together, they make a two-tone canvas, of a colour that is impossible to name and that changes with your angle of vision. The cover of “Reveries” reflects its author’s photographs; devoid of reference points, they send the gaze outwards to the imaginary, from subjects that could not be more real.

As the book unveils its “reveries”, the different papers selected for its pages have their effect. Delicate translucent sheets, with a woven appearance and a velvet touch, open the doors to a new continent. Thereafter, art paper alternates with raw paper. Their textures keep pace with the stories of the author’s expeditions as this photographic work unfolds. The alliance of materials, sometimes smooth, sometimes rough, reflects the territories traversed.

The photographs are the culmination of six years of work in wilderness areas that are often little-known, but nonetheless amongst the most remarkable in South America. The book is a fine example of publishing craftsmanship, and one we are happy to share with you.

Note: Texts of the photobook are in French. The photobook comes with the complimentary English traveller's log, which contains an English translation of all the texts from the photobook, in an easier-to-read pocket-format book. Every single piece of text from the photobook is translated into the traveller's log.

Under the patronage of the French National Commission for UNESCO
Stanley Leroux prefers to depict his response to an environment, rather than to document the landscape itself. As if giving it a voice. In “Reveries” he takes South America as his backdrop and presents a collection of images gleaned over a six-year period in the wide, wild, open spaces of the continent.

Titanic glaciers jostling the Andes, the harshness of winter on the altiplano... The subjects chosen by the artist bear witness to a powerful, sovereign natural world. However, lush abundance has no place in his work. The eye of the photographer catches the force of the environment and its climate, in a meeting of finesse, tenderness and sensitivity. Each of his photos contains its own contradiction.
The artist composes with shapes, nuances and empty space. The land becomes the medium. Sometimes, the subject is the essence of the void. There is a deliberate lack of visual cues that might give the viewer a sense of scale: the gaze becomes lost in the imaginary, and succumbs to reverie...

This work dwells on habitats that are threatened by global warming and industrialisation and ignored by the media, all to the detriment of local people. Over the years, Stanley Leroux has revisited the same regions so as to observe the changes. Thus, the project has an element of the commemorative. Some of this photography can no longer be repeated today. The image becomes the memory.

“Reveries”, a personal and direct account of a truly wild South America, before it becomes only a dream.

Plant a tree with the « Reveries » book
“For every book sold, we support Planète Urgence, a French charity with a global reach, by financing the planting of one mangrove tree in a programme of coastal reforestation in Borneo. We chose this programme because, although geographically distant from the photo locations in the book, it is close to our values. Mangroves do much more than store carbon, although the Indonesian mangroves are one of the most effective forest ecosystems in that sense; they also provide a natural barrier against the natural disasters that happen often in this region, and a home for many endemic species which are in danger of extinction, such as the proboscis monkey. And finally, they have a crucial economic and social role, protecting aquaculture basins which are the main means of subsistence for the local population. It’s a meaningful programme that, while combatting global warming, fits harmoniously into the local environment by protecting nature and people in more than one way.”