Born in 1976 on the shores of the Gulf of Morbihan, Nicolas Genette grew up between the beaches of the island of Houat and the countryside of the Auvergne, surrounded by a family who inculcated in him the values of nature and ocean. Deeply and irreparably hurt by life as a child, he began very early to question the nature of life and the world around him. As a result he developed an acute sense of observation, a compulsive curiosity and a heightened sensitivity that encouraged his interests in some very different fields and that gave him the desire to pursue his own way in life using his own way of seeing...
His passion for aviation came from his father whom he watched building his own plane, the one that Nicolas was to fly solo a few years later. Cradled by the ocean, he sailed competitively for 15 years, mainly dinghies: 5o5s, 49ers, 18ft Australian skiffs... Being a complete sport, both physically and mentally, sailing has taught him much about being a human being and opened his eyes and heart to the environment.

Through his passion for quantum physics he’s tried to touch the essence of the world. Attracted at a young age by the creation of the universe in all its forms, he’s devoted part of his career to computer-generated images and animations. But a real passion for the world and the nature of things less technical and more naturally intuitive led him to art photography. Leaving to one side computer graphics and special effects, he prefers a purer, more traditional approach centred on observation and composition.

The subject itself is of less interest than the questions about it his particular view of things arouses.
"Curiosity is fantastic in that it makes questions more interesting than answers. They open doors to other worlds, other realities, inexhaustible sources of enrichment. If we had all the answers, life would bland, without dreams, without theories, without research, without ... questions! In short, a very sad and monotonous life. An answer’s interest lies in the path taken to get to it, and that in itself it often leads to other questions, drawing us elsewhere, and finally enabling us to become who we are. In the end, do we really want to know everything? Don't we prefer to keep some things unknown, so as to be able to believe in something else?"

Some themes are more important than others, especially everything that touches on the relationship between man and his environment, on the planet in the broadest sense.
"The civilizations of rich and emergent countries orbit around a consumer society that is increasingly unhealthy both for the planet and for man. Life and our expectations of it are profoundly confused; man’s vision becomes detached from its essential habitat, preferring attachment to an ostentatious materialism. That wouldn't upset me were it not for the fact that those who refuse this material culture are directly caught up in it, even threatened by it. We all live on the same planet, and with today’s proliferation of the human race, it’s become a tiny one. We are all neighbours, all citizens of the world, whether we like it or not."

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