Why We're Great >

Nature and adventure
filmmaker & photographer

#Wildographer
Proud member of Bighorn Studio

Bighorn Studio

When one tugs at a single thing in nature, he finds it attached to the rest of the world.

John Muir

Photos

15:07

"You cannot understand..." - Seb Berthe trying hard on 'Fight or flight' 9b

26:14

#the nature fix - a hare in the soup

01:00

#the nature fix - There is something in the pond

01:53

#the nature fix - the fox and the sunset

01:10

'Will You Hear Us' - Trailer FR

Films

Simon Maurissen

I call myself a wildographer because everything that I like to do is related to Nature and visuals:

I am an award-winning filmmaker and photographer from Belgium, working on various subjects related to nature: wildlife, conservation, natural history, adventure and natural sciences. To contribute to protect the world natural heritage, to help people marvel at its beauties and encourage them to preserve it, are my main motives.

With four years of experience in various environments around the world, I want to be a bridge between people and the natural world beyond species and boundaries, I want to raise awareness on the most burning issues facing the planet today.

My background is in science with a master in geological sciences and a specialisation in water sanitation. I am also a trained nature guide. I taught myself the technical competencies of filmmaking as well as the art of storytelling and the photographic eye. I also draw and paint since I was very young and I now use the dry pastel, grey pencil and watercolour techniques regularly to illustrate wildlife, natural sceneries or intense gaze of people who captivate me.

I am the founder and an active member of the international audio-visual collective Bighorn Studio, which aims to raise awareness on conservation issues. I really believe in the principle of collaboration. The collective assemble people from different backgrounds and nationalities and put their skills together in order to create stories, under the form of films and art pieces, for the ones that cannot tell their own stories. I was fortunate enough to collaborate on different projects with talented and dedicated people who taught me a lot.

About

Based in Belgium, I work in Europe and abroad. I am particularly fond of relatively untouched environments such as mountains, rainforests, deserts and savannas.

I worked on different projects such as 'Will You Hear Us', a self-funded documentary on the bird trade and bird-keeping tradition in Indonesia, a scientific film commissioned by the Natural History Museum of Brussels, a scientific film about water sanitation in Morocco, various short films about the beauties that surround us, as well as other environmental, social and adventure-based films. I was awarded twice for short films I directed for Bighorn Studio in the amateur category at the International Namur Nature Festival and those films were selected in many other international festivals.

I aim at being a multi-skills filmmaker, photographer and illustrator specialising in small teams, lightweight shootings equipment and difficult filming environments. Beside the skills that contribute to camera operating and directing, I have many other qualifications that are useful in the context of nature and adventure filmmaking: I am first and foremost a naturalist (fond of ornithology and all natural sciences) who likes to travel to remote and difficult environments; I also have technical skills, rope work, off-road driving, aid certification and various other useful skills (wet forests, canopy hides, self-sufficiency) .

#Will You Hear Us

In the 'wildographer' appelation is also encompassed my artistic skills. I am a self-taught artist and work as an illustrator and a graphic designer.

I love to sketch the wilderness that enchants me and I almost exclusively illustrate nature (powerful portraits also have my passion) with watercolor, dry chalk or charcoal. I like to utilise my art to celebrate wildlife, but it is also a way to reflect on its vulnerability, as I am deeply concerned about the rapid slide to extinction that so many animals across the planet are facing. My concern for the furture of the natural world, the degradation of the habitats around the world and the diappearance of its beautiful wildlife is also reflected in my drawings.

Recently, I started working as a graphic designer in a quest to seeking the essence of a concept, the identity of a brand.