Joy is...A Way of Living.

Jean-Baptiste Joly-Lavrieux is a photographer based in the French Alps. He spent over a decade in banking before leaving the profession to pursue his passion for trail running and photography. I was recently drawn to a series of photographs that Like the Wind Magazine shared from Jean-Baptiste's Instagram: images from the UTMB mountain race, all captured on a disposable camera. Although not his usual camera of choice, the experiment epitomises Jean Baptiste's fluid style that evokes his deep relationship with the natural world and how we move through it.

After the initial look-a-like comparison with the infamous trail runner Anton Krupicka, we move on to discuss the differences between existing and living and how we can flip that narrative; holistic balance; the freedom of running; being a life-long student of photography and learning on the job; telling stories through the lens; the struggle between self-doubt and joy with creative work; naivety as both a frustration and a superpower; the contrast between individual projects and working to commission; an obsession with Jim Walmsley's doorstep; experiences from UTMB and the liberation that the disposable camera project provided; overcoming shyness; the relationship between photographer and subject; celebrating the unexpected; how running informs photography, and, likewise, how framing the world through a lens changes our appreciation of it.

Follow: @jb_joly

Commission: www.jbjoly.com

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