Experience Some of the Most Extraordinary Photographs by Ahae at the

Ahae Photography

June 25th to September 9, 2013, Paris, France

High End Weekly will be attending Ahae’s second major exhibition of photographs in France. This exhibit will be presented throughout the gardens of the Orangerie at the Palace of Versailles from June 25 through September 9, 2013. On view for the first time, THE EXTRAORDINARY WITHIN THE ORDINARY includes works in which all the languages of nature are explored by the photographer’s watchful eye: animals, movement, shadow and light. All of the photographs are taken from the same window… a radical challenge. From this unique viewpoint, Ahae aims to arouse our ability to be amazed by the simplest things and to perceive the primal messages they express. He urges us to open our eyes, see the natural world around us, and do whatever we can to protect it before it is too late.

THE EXTRAORDINARY WITHIN THE ORDINARY, an installation of monumental and large photographs, is part of the Palace of Versailles’s 2013 tribute to André Le Nôtre, the creator of the Versailles gardens. Admission is free.

About The Exhibition: Subject Diversity

Though taken from the same window, Ahae’s works embrace a surprising diversity of subjects. Nature is out there, present and mobile. Its variations and nuances are the subject of a wild, moving quest—the permanent wonder offered by this landscape world, with its spaces and its inhabitants. Indeed, an impressive bestiary inhabits Ahae’s photographic world. The animals are the source of simple amazement in their dialogue with the elements, sky, earth and water.

The Poetic Span of a Landscape
If every morning, winter and summer, Ahae manages to capture all the flavor of the landscape he sees from his window, it is because he understands its intricacies. From sunrise to the chiaroscuro of the moon, this microcosm is arranged around shared time. In succession, visitors traverse all the key moments of a day of the photographed landscape: a dreamed day, where we see the same subjects and events at the same time across the seasons. Variations in climate, like different times of the day, are a matrix in which the banal becomes exceptional. And focusing our gaze on “practically nothing”, the ordinary becomes extraordinary. Dialogue is established.

The Languages of NatureThrough his photos, Ahae’s intent is to spur visitors to adopt a curious and attentive focus on that which speaks the language of nature. Those who know how to listen already understand the words of silence. In a world of familiar noises, Ahae’s photographs are an invitation to learn once more how to look and listen. The gray wagtail, the water deer, the azure-winged magpie and the black-naped oriole provide a plethora of characters for an open-air theater. Under the dome of the changing skies, nature is a breviary whose alphabet is written in the fleeting impressions captured by the photographer in every moment.