In 2015, a lone male wolf traveled from high in the Italian Alps to make its permanent home in south central France. This remarkable return brought an end to a century-long absence of the predator in the region, peaking the interest of photographer Julien Coquentin who became fascinated by its reappearance.
The history of the wolf in the region is rich, its myth permeates local folklore settling ghostlike over the pastoral countryside. For Coquentin, the return of the wolf opens a portal to the past. The nature of the woods he once strolled through has changed; flesh has reappeared where once only myth existed. Through the use of text and image, the photographers new book Orielle Coupée explores the enigmatic return of the wolf.
Coquentin’s journey through the story began in the archives. There, he discovered the history of the animal in his locale—how in the late 1700s a wolf named ‘The Beast of Gévaudan’ attacked over 200 residents, killing over a hundred. Another story tells of a country doctor who treated a family suffering from an attack by a pair of rabid wolves, resulting in death for all three of them. The last official report of a wolf in Coquentin’s local area was in 1897. At the time, the government awarded hunters for killing wolves in a national effort to protect sheep and grazing animals. Proof of a killed wolf was a severed ear—an ‘oreille coupée’ in French—the reward for which was 100 francs.
In Oreille Coupée, the wolf is captured only once—and this by a trail cam. Despite the nature of the project, Coquentin did not desire to meet his muse, preferring instead to allow its specter to inhabit his imagination. By using trail cams, he attempted to see the world as the predator would and thus enter its psyche. The lush, square format images of the woods were taken while walking between trail cams and present as a map of the territory stalked by the wolf.
Coquentin applied a cyanotype process to the trail cam photographs. Through trial and error he ended up with a bluish, yellow coloring to the prints. Only after finishing with the project did he discover that wolves are dichromatic, and that the most dominant colors they see in is the same blue and yellow he had happened upon.
Oreille Coupée is a story told as much through writing as it is through photography. Each subject in his portraits have been affected in some way by a wolf, and the artist was intent on sharing their varied experiences. In one portrait, a man who hails from another part of France stands next to a stuffed wolf shot in the 1970s. In another is a young naturalist that has been tasked with tracking the wolf’s movements. Several farmers and sheepherders also feature, and they ruminate on the return of the wolf and on their responsibilities as stewards of the land.
The year the wolf returned was the same year Coquentin’s son was born, a stark reminder that the woods he once enjoyed were no longer safe. The specter of wolves who have come and gone had been joined by the real. What was once only imagined has come back to life.
Oreille Coupée
by Julien Coquentin
Publisher: Charcoal Book Club