The Ephemeral Reign of Eternal Whiteness

Dent Blanche stands in the heart of the Swiss Alps, in the Valais region. Dressed all in white, it bears its name well in this photograph. But legend has it that its name was interchanged with that of the The Dent d'Hérens when the mountains were officially named on the Dufour map.

Dent Blanche is seen here from val d’Anniviers. Its northeast face is revealed, adorned with its hanging glacier, which is shrinking irretrievably every year. How much longer will we be able to enjoy its beauty? Probably not much longer.

It's daybreak, the end of winter, and summit is covered in the white veil that the storm, which has just passed, has deposited on its walls. I particularly love the mountains when they reveal their purity in this way. We have the impression that whiteness is eternal. In reality, however, it depends on very specific conditions. To succeed in photographing the White Mountain, you have to watch the weather several times a day, and look out for precipitation. You then need to observe whether or not the sky is clearing, and be in the right place to capture the perfect moment when the summits reveal their beauty, sublimated by their snow-covered flanks. A few minutes later, once the sun has lit up the mountains, it's already too late. The snow transforms and the magic disappears.

In this photograph, I wanted to convey the grandeur of Dent Blanche. Through the projection of its shadow, it reveals a new personality, a different form, that of its opposite side, invisible in the image. In the background, mountains follow one another, valleys overlap. In the shadows is the Val d'Hérens. Our gaze then turns to the Pigne d'Arolla and Mont Blanc de Cheilon. We then sail over the Verbier valley to Grand Combin. The grandiose panorama guides us to the Mont-Blanc massif, on the border between Italy and France. This extraordinary landscape opens the door to the pristine white realm of the high mountains. The one that makes us dream and instills in us the irrepressible desire to climb its colossal, bewitching peaks.