Daniel Boudinet
Born in Paris, Daniel Boudinet began shooting photographs in the late 1960s. His first publication, Bagdad-sur-Seine (1973) depicts the architectural upheaval of Paris. His book on the gardens of Bomarzo and En Alsace
place him in the classic tradition of the natural landscape. At the same time the magazine Le Cinématographe
regularly commissioned portraits from him of actors and directors.
His relationships with the avant-garde art and architectural media confirmed him as a photographer and
illustrator with flawless technique, including the spa towns of France (1984), Ian Hamilton Finlay’s garden
(1987) and the architecture of Carlo, Tobia and Afra Scarpa.
He developed a purely creative approach for institutional commissions, and carried on strictly personal
research, including Paris-London-Rome (between 1974 and 1979), Fragments of a Maze (1979), Paris at
Twilight (1981) and The Pantheon (1986).
His passion for history led him to memorial sites, such as Petra, Leningrad and Versailles, whose significance,
materials and poetry he was able to express through a rich colour path.
In 1980, Roland Barthes published La Chambre Claire, reproducing a Polaroid by Daniel Boudinet, with whom
he had been friends for a few years as the book’s frontispice. This enigmatic image, with its blue and green
tones, serves as an introduction to the philosophical views of the author, seeking to resolve the inherent
paradoxes of photography.