But who is Chmouty?
It was more or less at the dawn of the 21st century that my master began to drag me around in his wallet with his camera, without asking my opinion, and without ever letting me choose the destination. Besides, I don't like the mountains ...
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My master cowardly chose to use my name to expose himself on the net. But I can tell you that, knowing his ego, it is not out of modesty.
But who is his master Abdou Martin?
I was born in Senegal in 1964, to humanist parents who adored this country, hence my first name.
After 8 years in Senegal, where my childhood was a carefree delight, we spent 4 years in Algeria before arriving in Grasse.
My taste for travel went without saying, but what drove me to the mountains remains a mystery, because I lived all my youth near the sea and was neither athletic nor a mountaineer. I didn't have the mountains in my genes since my mother was from the Landes and my father was from Beauce: we have seen better in terms of moutains!
I believe that reading mountaineering adventure books, from the age of 10, absolutely fascinated me even though I did not understand anything of the technical terms. At the age of 16, I joined the MJC de Grasse mountain club and I was finally able to live my first experiences in the mountains.
After a baccalaureate with mention "it's meh but you pass", my studies got the better of my motivation, and I gave up pursuing them. I then had the opportunity to become a gardener, a job I liked a lot. But the plants and flowers did not like me: I turned out to be allergic to pollen.
After various odd jobs, the idea of ​​heading towards mountain professions started making more and more sense: further from pollen, and closer to my passion.
So I arrived in the Briançonnais at the end of the '80s to follow a guide and ski instructor training at the CRET.
Since then I have remained based in the Briançonnais, which truly is an exceptional region.
For several years, I have been working a bit as a ski instructor in Montgenèvre, and mainly as a mountain guide with my clients and the guide's office in La Grave. A few years ago I started working with people from disadvantaged backgrounds - as we say modestly - through associations such as En Passant Par la Montagne.
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And the photo?
It is an addiction that I got when I was 10-12 years old, and I could not find any therapy to get out of it (and did not look for one either), and the transition to digital photography made him even more addicted. I am not sure that the creation of this site is a good remedy. And the mountain is a great playground for images too. I must admit that I often feel not so much as a creative, but rather like an image picker.
In the end, between Chmouty and I, I am not sure who is the master...
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