Wednesday, January 19, 2011

Landscape: Bi-polar weather

Exceptional light seems easy to come by in the "hills" of Jura on the border between Switzerland and France. I am particularly fond of the light that results from a "bi-polar" weather, where one part of the sky is clear with a brimming sun and the other side is full of an approaching storm of menacingly black clouds. These conditions are probably the only time I can bear photographing trees only. These photos are from a tour a month a go or so, when this bi-polar weather condition was very strong.



Landscape: Outing in the Alps

Following the lack of skiable snow the last couple of weeks in Switzerland, we have resorted to snowshoes and crampons for our outings. Slush snow and 15 degrees in the middle of January makes for bad skiing, yet clear skies and towering mountains makes for good landscape photography. In this case my session was a study in the triad of the legendary mountains Eiger, Mönch and Jungfrau. The North Face of Eiger is particularly well know among mountaineers and climbers for being one of the most difficult ascents in the Alps - a vertical wall devoid of sunshine and with a height of around 1600 m and conditions that are often not favorable for climbing. For those in the know, it is classified as ED (Extremely Difficult), one of the few in the Alps.


Eiger and Mönch in an "Arabian Night" kind of interpretation.
The north face of Eiger to the left is rendered heavily shadowed reflecting its menacing character.


Mönch in a very interesting light, where the sunset orange is reflected from Eiger on the left to illuminate the left side of Mönch orange as well.