himalayan portraits

Back at university, he prepares his Foreign Affairs exam with a job in an embassy his dream, beginning to learn Swahili, an African language presented by few students at the examination. Unfortunately there is no place for him at the Quai d'Orsay and his dream of working for embassies evaporates. With his time for studying is over Stephan Brunner decided to make some business. During five years he managed an agro-food company. But then again time for travelling had come.

Having married the year before to Anne-Lorraine Guillou, a young teacher exhausted by her thesis, he decides to stop his business' career and to profit from his savings and start, with his wife, what they call their ‘freedom conquest’. A year travelling changes the vision they had of the world. They ride bicycles round south island in New Zealand, follow the trails in Patagonia, himalayan portraits... climb picks in the Peruvian Cordillera, paddle in the frozen waters of British Columbia, ride horses in Ladakh, go through Tibetan passes and end their story in the sticky heat of India. Populations and geography become familiar to them.

A passion for himalayan portraits

Passionate also about photography, Stephan Brunner brings back many pictures and drawings that allow him and his wife to write a book. But he already knows that what he experienced will be eternal only if he once again takes up his brushes and puts on the canvas all those faces and expressions he encountered. He decides to go to his father and learn with rigour the skills of a painter in order to express with strength and authenticity the abundance of images he memorised.