My story
My name is Frank Lahaye. Photography has been part of my life for as long as I can remember. For many years, however, it remained something alongside everything else. Something I loved, but never fully allowed myself to pursue.
That changed after my father passed away.
Loss has a way of changing how you look at time. It made me reflect on the life I was living, the choices I was making, and what truly mattered to me. Family came first. I began to slow down, make different choices and give more space to something that had always been there: photography.
But photography changed too.
I became less interested in simply capturing what was in front of me and more interested in what an image could make me feel. A person disappearing into a landscape. The distance between two people. An animal standing quietly at the edge of the water. A solitary figure in a city. Light falling across a place for only a few seconds.
Sometimes it is beautiful. Sometimes melancholic. Sometimes there is a sense of distance, solitude or longing that is difficult to put into words.
Those are the moments I am drawn to.
The work
Each photograph is approached as a finished work rather than simply an image.
I take time in creating it, but also in deciding whether a photograph belongs within Lemuria. Not everything I photograph becomes part of the collection. A work has to carry something beyond what is visible.
Something that stays with you.
The works are released as limited edition fine art photographs, created for spaces where an image is allowed to do more than decorate a wall.
To create a moment of recognition, reflection or simply a feeling that cannot quite be explained.
Created to be experienced, not simply observed.
Beyond the visible
Lemuria grew from this way of seeing.
The name is inspired by the mythical Lemuria, a world often associated with intuition, connection and a deeper relationship between life and the natural world. For me, it represents something less literal: the idea that there is more to experience than what we can immediately see.
That is what I look for with my camera.
Not a particular landscape, person or subject, but a feeling of connection. Between people and nature. Between an individual and the world around them. Between presence and absence, closeness and distance.
I rarely know beforehand exactly what I am looking for. I return to places. I walk. I observe. I wait. Sometimes for hours, sometimes much longer.
Often, nothing happens.
And then, occasionally, everything comes together.
Light, atmosphere, place and presence align for a brief moment. The image is not constructed. It is discovered.
That moment is Lemuria.
