Between the German school and the French school of landscape, close to Thomas Ruff, Jean Marc Bustamante and Thibaut Cuisset, Gilbert Fastenaekens, Belgian photographer, has been for a long time promoting the “documentary style”, halfway between the low profile reproduction or reality and the artistic reappropriation it means. Recognized very early for its “Nights” (1980-1987), night urban landscape way off the omnipresent photo-report at the time, he participates to the photographic mission of Datar for the regional planning in France and obtains the Kodak price of photographic criticism in 1986. Thereafter; trough several orders about “territory”, he goes on observation of the city and the landscape, away from any anecdotic or easy sentimentalism.