For this photographer from Nîmes, the world is a wonderful playground and life a continuous series of adventures. The result: photography awards, books, feature films, and a new exhibition that has captivated major galleries as well as the Rencontres d'Arles photography festival, a reminder of a time when he studied photography in Arles with Lucien Clergue.
A lifetime of photographs, thousands of pictures. Dominique Leroy has traveled around the world 25 times.
The photographer summons his courage and sorts, organizes, and selects his photographs. The result is books enriched by his latest passion: rust. Dominique sells his work through online galleries. Dominique Leroy is one of those artists whose work doesn't go unnoticed, and neither does he. This photography enthusiast has never strayed from his passion and has added a new one for the past four years: painting on rusted metal.
But let's start at the beginning. Dominique Leroy was born in Mont-de-Marsan (Landes) just over sixty years ago (1966). But very quickly, the family moved to Nîmes. Dominique was six years old, and Nîmes became his home, his base, and his roots. From the age of seven, the boy was passionate about photography thanks to his two grandparents, knowledgeable amateurs, and to Hergé's Tintin, which inspired him to travel.
His career aspirations quickly became incompatible with school, which he abandoned after two unsuccessful attempts at a science baccalaureate, a qualification he claimed he had no chance of passing. What he wanted was to be exactly like Tintin: a globetrotting reporter… who never wrote anything down! Faced with his parents' stubborn refusal, Dominique temporarily relented and enrolled in physiotherapy school. But this headstrong only child wasn't finished yet. He sabotaged this path, deciding to leave by slamming the door a month before graduation. What his son wanted… Dominique would be a photographer.
As nothing is ever simple, the boy caught the motorsport bug from his father, who was equally enthusiastic and passed on his passion. Everything became clear, and Dominique Leroy decided to combine his two passions and become a motorsport photographer. A significant challenge, given that the profession is a cutthroat environment where it's difficult to break into the industry. But he didn't care.
His father asked him to complete his photography vocational diploma in six months instead of two years and gave him a monthly allowance for those two years to prove himself. And so he did! Diploma in hand, accompanied by his parents, he frequented hill climb races and other national rallies. He managed to get published, but it wasn't yet the breakthrough. To take things to the next level, he forged a press card, a key to getting onto Formula 1 circuits. It worked! He entered an international photography competition in Antibes and won first prize, presented by Jacques Lafitte, then a Formula 1 driver at the peak of his career. The Sipa Presse agency noticed him and hired him. The dream had come true.
He lives like a diva, always jetting off, champagne, parties, jet lag, and a frantic race to be the first to get "the shot." Except for one time, he recounts. "It was a cursed Grand Prix, Imola in 1994. A death during practice. Ayrton Senna didn't want to start the race, then let himself be persuaded." On the eighth lap, tragedy struck. After the start, the photographers made their way back along the track and arrived at the scene of the accident.
“We immediately understood that he was dead. We took photos, but no one ever published them out of respect for this great driver.” In 2008, I was tired, and Formula 1 was changing. It was time to think about other adventures,” he recalls.
The idea had appealed to him since 2004; he took the plunge and added a camera to his filmmaking arsenal. It was the beginning of a journey that would once again take him to five continents. But this time, the fast cars and glitz were gone. Dominique Leroy met the French journalist and writer Dominique Lapierre and decided to make a feature film about the City of Joy, 25 years after the release of Lapierre and Collins' eponymous bestseller.
He then travels to Africa to meet some of the most primitive tribes on the planet. He ventures further to Tierra del Fuego and even seeks out the last indigenous shamans of North America and the Amazon. In France, he also discovers new territory for exploration, filming a feature-length documentary about unusual carnivals, bringing to light some quirky French tribes. Dominique Leroy is currently working with his friend Bruno Bonizec and Jean-Luc Azria on a film written by Véronique Palomar/Camplan about the evolution of Formula 1 for television, and is preparing a book, scheduled for release in a couple of years, entitled "Court-Circuit" (Short Circuit). Several exhibitions are planned to coincide with the book's publication.