Sunset light on the hills
- 📍 Location: La Grave, facing La Meije, Écrins, France
- 📅 Date: 2021
The last sun was raking across the grass slopes below the range, low enough that every fold in the ground had a lit side and a shadowed one. Behind them the Meije was already in shade with cloud sitting on its ridge.
I framed upright with the hills filling two thirds of the picture, because the hills are the subject and the range is the backdrop — the reverse of how this valley is usually photographed. The rounded pasture is what carries the light; the rock above it carries none.
Side light is the only thing that makes a grass slope worth photographing. Head on it is a flat green field; raked across at this angle it becomes a relief map, and every hollow and terrace the cattle have worn into it appears at once.
These slopes are grazed and mown and have been for centuries, and the shapes in them are as much agricultural as geological. Photographing a mountain, I find I am nearly always more interested in the part people have touched.
Limited-edition fine-art print from the Skywaven Studios collection, available in several sizes, papers and framing options.
