Sunday Interview. Laurent Ballesta, photographer: "I don't seek to show the beauty of the world, but its mysteries."

For over 25 years, you have dedicated your life to exploring the ocean floor. Where does this intoxication with the depths come from?

"My driving force has been the same since childhood: curiosity, a taste for exploration, imagining myself as a cosmonaut of the seas... What I understood very young and which has taken root in me is the need to be impressed. My primary motivation is not to take the most beautiful photo, but to seek out the unknown."

What place does photography have in this thirst for exploration?

“As a kid, I was already frustrated by the fact that I couldn’t stay underwater forever. Photography allowed me to extend my observation , to look in detail, to zoom in on the image and also to collect evidence. As soon as I got a few good shots out of the water, I realized that everything was there: exploration, a means of expression, adventure…”

You say that raising awareness through beauty is no longer enough today to preserve the oceans. Why?

“Showing this beauty today creates more covetousness than respect. With the rise of social media, even if there are good things, we find ourselves drowning in beautiful images. We are all “scrolling,” saying to ourselves, “How lucky to be here. I want to be there too.” And today, you will always find a Good Samaritan tour operator to offer you the turnkey trip with the cocktail and good bedding that goes with it. We have to find another way.”

What would it be?

“The one that shows a mysterious nature, one that surpasses us. We are always respectful of what is greater than us, of what escapes us. It's also about suggesting how great our ignorance is. There is then a form of respect possible. I'm not trying to show the beauty of the world, but its mysteries and those places where we ourselves are pushed into our own entrenchments, where we measure our own vulnerability. The last world that we don't know on our little blue planet is that of the oceans. We've only been exploring it for a century, and we only know its surface, even though we know that faults plunge into the Pacific at a depth of more than 10,000 meters. It's about trying to suggest the sacredness of the mysterious. And marine biodiversity offers that with each exploration.”

An unknown world that arouses industrial desires...

"We're seeing an uninhibited Donald Trump who, with one signature, reauthorized commercial fishing in one of the world's largest marine protected areas around Hawaii. He also explained without hesitation that for the exploitation of deep-sea minerals, it was 'first come, first served.' Touching these minerals means remobilizing CO2 stored at the bottom of the sea, it means touching a biodiversity about which we know nothing today, especially regarding its role in regulating the climate."

2025 is the year of the sea. You participated in the ocean summit in Nice in June. What are your expectations for these meetings?

"We'll see what the results are. One of the priorities would be to establish more precise rules on marine protected areas (MPAs). We need to secure commitments at least at the national level so that our MPAs have their regulations strengthened, such as the ban on trawlers. It takes very little time for nature to return. I'd say it takes even less than an electoral mandate, if that can motivate our elected officials... Of course, nature is in danger, it's being mistreated, but I never use the adjective "fragile." Because with what we're doing to it, if it were, there would have been nothing left a long time ago."

One of your latest expeditions took you off the coast of Cape Corsica, to discover strange rings... what is this mystery?

"This discovery dates back to 2010 thanks to an oceanographic campaign led by the University of Corsica. The expedition was worthy of the film The Abyss: these very dark rings, 1,417 of which were counted, are all roughly the same size, most often with a rocky core, and have never been seen anywhere else in the world. We then set out to understand this mysterious valley of rings, but I had really underestimated the difficulty of the mission: it took us three and a half years. This deep descent took us back in time, to the last ice age, more than 20,000 years ago."

As a diver, you have also been to the peaks. What parallels do you draw between exploring the depths and the quest for the summits?

"I think back to Gaston Rébuffat's line in Man Facing the Mountain : "The mountaineer is a man who leads his body to where his eyes once looked." The problem with diving is that you can never contemplate the seabed from the surface. It's opaque, even in the clearest water in the world. It's a land of imagination where you compose the scenery as you discover it, while it disappears behind you. The whole thing becomes a puzzle to be put together in your head. Ultimately, if I had to repeat this line, I would say that the diver directs his eyes to where only his dreams could have taken him."

Exhibitions: Planet Seas, at the La Gacilly photo festival (Morbihan), until October 5, 2025 - The Mystery of the Rings, at the Musée des Confluences in Lyon, until April 19, 2026.