FRAMES Photography Podcast with Ben Thouard

In today’s episode, W. Scott Olsen talks to Ben Thouard, a water and ocean photographer from southern France.

You can listen to this interview using our podcast player below, but we strongly encourage you to subscribe to the podcast in your podcast app so that you don’t miss any future show episodes.

Originally from Toulon, in the south of France, Ben Thouard has been raised by the sea. From a family of six, at a young age, his big brothers taught him surfing, which has bred in him a deep love for the ocean.

This sport became an addiction that has guided the rest of his life. While he was learning how to surf, he was also discovering art and joined painting classes. Naturally, he was painting ocean and waves.

As a teenager, he discovered photography when he accidentally found an old camera in his parent’s attic. He bought a few films, he shot, he failed, he shot again… and realized that this whole process fascinates him. “That’s it! I will become a photographer!”

After graduating, Ben managed to convince his parents that he wanted to attend a photography school. That’s how he moved to Paris with a camera and a 50mm lens. He spent the first year shooting everywhere in Paris, consuming dozens, even hundreds of Kodak films TRI-X 400 that he developed in his bathroom and printed at school.

Thirsty for knowledge, he learned everything he could, spending countless hours shooting, reading, and learning. But his obsession with surfing got back in him and made his life in Paris hard to handle. Eventually, he quit his photography school halfway through the year and flew to Hawaii.

In January 2006, when he was 19 years old, he landed in Maui, Hawaii, with his homemade warehousing and spent the next three months swimming at Ho’okipa every single day regardless of the conditions.