Welcome to our series of interviews with some of our favorite member artists on Imagekind. They may be best sellers or up-and-coming artists. We hope that you can learn from these members and find some great new artists to love!

Second in our series is Imagekind artist Patrick Morand. When he isn’t making beautiful photographs for select clients, Patrick is taking gorgeous landscape pictures of France. He uses unique angles and processing to give his images their signature look. Patrick was kind enough to answer a few short questions for us.

Born in 1966 in the French Alps. Scientific studies and graduated as a software and network engineer.Worked as a software project manager for a company during a few years and rapidly decided to be self employed. Nature lover always, spent more than 20 years climbing rocks across the European continent. – Patrick Morand

1 ) When did you first realize that you wanted to be a photographer?

Not sure when I decided, but I remember how it happened. A friend who was kind of a garden designer offered to pay me for taking photographs of his garden work. As I was self employed, it was not a problem and so the story started like that …

2 ) You are a professional photographer for a living. How is your professional work different from your artistic work?

In what you call my artistic work I mostly do natural landscapes. In my day job I photograph many things:

- Garden, swimming pools, villas. This is very similar to my landscape work. Villas interiors, a few portraits, industrial processes, physical experimentations, paintings, etc.

In my landscape work I’m totally free to decide how I’ll shoot the scene, in my day job sometimes the client lets me have freedom and sometimes he doesn’t.

Sunflowers field in the storm light - Provence

3 ) What gives you inspiration to make your work?

Nature first, but also some painter’s works, and other photographer’s works.

4 ) Do you show your photographs at any galleries?

Yes, a few along the Mediterranean coast. My dream would be to run my own gallery. I know where it would be, but I still have to wait a few more years.

5 ) What is your online presence?

The first place is my french website patmo.net where I show a part of my stock. It’s only about my personal work, not about my day job because this one runs mostly by “bouche à oreille”.

Then comes my English blog: french-landscapes.blogspot.com

I’m also on Imagekind, Twitter, Flickr and a few other art sites …

Orange dawn - Provence

6 ) What equipment (camera, lights, processing programs) do you use to take your pictures?

I mainly use my Nikon DSLR. Some studio lights for portraits, interior shots or paintings. Some flashes also. I also use many types of software. Mainly SilkyPix, PTGui, Photomatix and PictureWindowPro.

7 ) Did you ever use film? How have your photographs changed since you have started taking pictures digitally?

Yes, black and white negative films a long time ago and I loved processing them in my own darkroom. Color slides (mainly Fujifilm Velvia) for landscapes. I loved (and still do) medium and large format film cameras.

About changes, I don’t really know. I think I experiment more with digital cameras. No film costs of course but a huge time to spend on the computer (and that’s a real cost).

8 ) What is your favorite photograph that you have made?

Difficult question, it changes every day!  I can cite these two :

Mediterranean vapors - Le Pradet - Provence

Clouds over Toulon in Provence

9 ) Who is your favorite artist (besides yourself!) on Imagekind?

Another difficult one. The answer is Mike Dawson.

10 ) Thanks for taking the time to tell us about yourself, Patrick! Your photographs are breathtaking, and we certainly hope to see more soon!

Thank you!

Natural threat - Mediterranean seascape - Provence