XAVI BOU
Ornitographies arises from my personal concern for capturing unnoticed moments and from my interest in questioning the limits of human perception. I focus on birds, my great passion, in order to capture in a single time-frame the shapes they generate when flying, and to make the invisible visible. Unlike other motion studies that preceded it, Ornitographies moves away from the scientific approach of chronophotography employed by photographers like Eadweard Muybridge and Étienne-Jules Marey.
In Ornitographies, the skill of flying—man’s long-lasting yearning—is presented before us, challenging and extending our visual perception. Art and science walk hand in hand to create images that are no longer a single portrait of reality but instead the witnesses of a sequence of instants that embody all at once past, present, and future. Ornitographies provides a balance between art and science; it is a nature-based dissemination project and a visual poetry exercise; above all, it is an invitation to perceive the world with the same curious and innocent look of the child we once were - Xavi Bou
Xavi Bou holds a geology degree from the University of Barcelona, Spain and continued his studies in photography at Grisart International Photography School. Beginning his Ornitographies project in 2012, Bou released his first edition in 2015. Bou has exhibited internationally, and his projects have appeared in publications including National Geographic, Sierra Club, BBC Science Focus, among others.
