I am a self-taught professional photographer, passionate about nature and biodiversity. I took my first photos in the 80s with a Nikon FM2. From 1996 to 1999, I traveled to Africa with my wife with the aim of photographing two extreme environments: the equatorial forest of the Congo Basin and the Namib Desert. Of this adventure, several articles were published in international magazines such as Africa Environment & Wildlife. The photograph of a lowland gorilla feeding in the water of a clearing in the north of the Republic of Congo was highly commended in the prestigious Wildlife Photographer of the Year 1998 competition. After a 22-year career in the pharmaceutical industry as a medical doctor, I decided to devote my life entirely to nature photography. This artistic medium allows me to express and share my way of contemplating landscapes, fauna and flora. Since 2022, I have been working on a project entitled ‘Floral Portraits’ whose aim is to pay tribute to the extraordinary beauty and diversity of the floral world. I am fascinated by flowers, especially since they are, for the most part, ephemeral and delicate. Their range of colors, sizes, shapes and anatomical arrangements is virtually endless. They play an essential role in biodiversity since they attract and feed pollinators (bees, butterflies, bats, etc.) which, by transferring pollen from one flower to another, ensure the survival of most of the plants on our planet. They are essential to our diet and that of animals, all fruits, without exception, coming from pollinated flowers. Flowers also have deep cultural significance for humans; they beautify our interiors and our gardens, and are present at every moment of our lives, from birth to funerals. My ‘Floral Portraits’ are the result of a combination of horticulture and photography. Whenever possible, I grow each of the flowers that I will photograph. I select seeds and bulbs that produce flowers that meet my aesthetic criteria in terms of colors and shapes. I try to grow well-known and unknown flowers from distant horizons to arouse admiration and curiosity. Growing my own flowers offers the advantage of obtaining varieties that are not distributed by florists and of being able to pick them at the best time. I use the technique known as ‘focus stacking’ to obtain large prints (up to 180cm long) perfectly sharp revealing tiny details invisible to the naked eye. The flowers are photographed in a studio specially designed for this purpose. I take several hundred photos of the same flower with a slight shift in focus between each shot and then combine the in-focus areas of each photo into a single image. Each flower portrait takes an average of two weeks of time from the first shot to the finished artwork. I make it a point of honor that artificial intelligence does not enter my creative process at any time. It is critical that flowers do not move or change during their intense photoshoots as the slightest movement can ruin a shot. The fact that flowers are living organisms with an often-short life expectancy and complex biology makes the exercise difficult. Many flowers respond to changes in light (a phenomenon called photonasty), with some closing instantly when not exposed to sunlight. Additionally, many flowers have a circadian rhythm (a sort of internal clock) that controls how they open and close, even under artificial studio light. Careful observation of each flower and repeated trials are necessary to achieve the desired photographic results.