HIS SHARE OF THE DREAM
With Alain Pons, in the eye of the tiger…
The evocative power of names has given rise to many a vocation… Such was the case for young Alain who, in the 1950s, daydreamed at his school desk. Drawn to natural sciences and geography, he pictured the eternal snows of Kilimanjaro, the vast Maasai plains, the maze of the Okavango and the astonishing array of creatures these sanctuaries shelter. As a boy, he had a talent for drawing, a path that seemed set. As a young man, he fell for photography, practising it alongside his studies in graphic arts, promising himself that one day he would set off to discover the wider world, camera in hand…
The wide-open spaces would have to wait until he had the means. In the 1990s, his career in major graphic design agencies finally gave him that. He was ready. His curiosity about the natural world had led him to devour articles, books and documentaries. Knowledge he would then put to the test in the field, observing animals, decoding their behaviour, intent on an approach as respectful as possible. Collecting trophy shots held no meaning for him, and it is without doubt this philosophy that allowed him to capture nature’s most striking moments. Alain Pons thus made a name for himself in wildlife photography. The biggest magazines published his work, he was invited onto television sets: “recognition gives you the right to speak,” he says, somewhat ill at ease. It also gave him the legitimacy to pursue his passion fully: to make nature his full-time office, he became a pioneer, one of the first to offer travellers professional photography guidance.
At the dawn of the year 2000, he continued the adventure with Étendues Sauvages, sharing with the agency the same values, the same desire to pass on — even before his experience as a photographer — his love and fascination for animals. Several hundred clients later, at 70, he still hasn’t tired of it. And what about the tiger in all this? “Ah, the tiger… It alone embodies every criterion of perfection. Its power, its beauty, its grace, its way of hunting make it, for me, the ultimate animal.”
It was in the sublime Indian reserve of Bandhavgarh that he experienced this revelation, in a memorable face-to-face with this force of nature that “pierces you with its gaze” with the nonchalance of the apex predator. “The tiger isn’t afraid of us — it could destroy us in a matter of seconds! But what you discover, when you don’t act foolishly and show it respect, is that it’s an extremely tolerant animal.” One episode drives the point home. “We were stranded in the jungle, our vehicle had broken down and daylight was fading. Our driver was trying to improvise a drive belt out of a length of rope. So focused were we that we hadn’t noticed a tigress watching us from barely 10 metres away. We froze, hearts racing. She sized us up, without any aggression, while we watched her, mesmerised by her beauty. Then she turned and disappeared into the forest. It was staggering!”
Alain has lived through plenty more episodes like this, by 4×4, on foot or on elephant-back, across the parks of Pana, Ranthambore, Kaziranga and Rajaji-Corbett, which he has crisscrossed in search of new encounters with the lord of the jungle. Each time, the animal’s self-assurance commanded his admiration, and its bearing, his fascination.
From this feline bond came a wealth of remarkable images. “A wealth of images I simply had to put to use!”
Author of numerous guides on the finest wildlife safaris, he has published four reference works on the tiger.
An interview conducted by Lou Nine, for expérience #07.
