I had the great pleasure of spending three weeks in Zermatt realizing a project made possible with the help of the Cervo Mountain Resort, which hosted me for the entirety of my stay; a commissioned artwork that encapsulates the spirit and motto “Beyond Exploring”.
Regarding the stay itself, I couldn’t have wished for a better one. The hotel facilities, environment, food, and its people above all made it an experience I will cherish for a long time. And I am grateful for that.
For this project, I had full creative freedom to come up with what I felt was in line with the spirit of the hotel, the region of Zermatt, and my own experience here. After careful consideration, I decided to create something that would hold the spirit of what “exploring” means to me, whether it is physically, technically, or philosophically.
As landscape photographers, one of the challenges we encounter is finding ways to capture our already well-documented world with a different eye and perspective. While composite photography (the art of combining several images to create a new one) allows for more creative freedom and playing with reality, it remained a challenge for me to create something in the region of Zermatt that was different and still close to reality.
I will highlight here that the nature of my work is not to represent reality as it is, but rather to capture pieces of it that are put back together digitally. And while some may think you can blend images that have no connection with each other and go a little crazy creatively, I do my very best to shoot all my elements within a 6 to 12-hour timeframe and in the same area, if not at the exact same location.
And so, for this particular artwork, it was important to me to capture everything over the same night, from sunrise to sunset, and at the exact same location. This would mean spending the night at the place where I would capture my foreground, landscape, and night sky.
Although I already had a good idea of the image in mind beforehand, the location was decided a few days before the shoot based on the stars’ visibility, the Milky Way arch position, and a panoramic view that included the famous Matterhorn but not only. The tricky thing was to come up with an image that would include the Matterhorn, as it is the icon of Zermatt, but that would still be different from what’s been done in the past, as this region is well over documented and captured (and rightfully so).
After some research, I found what seemed to be the perfect location for the panorama I had in mind, where I could capture more peaks that would be equally important for the frame of the image. And for those who know the region a little bit, this is a view somewhere on the way to the Gornergrat, but closer to the cliffs that would give visibility to the valley where majestic glaciers used to stand.
I arrived there in the afternoon to give me enough time to scout where I would position my camera for each image and at what time I would photograph what. And so here is how it went:
- I captured the foreground – me standing on the left part of the image with my headlamp – at sunset blue hour (the 20 minutes that happen right after the sun disappears) around 10 pm.
- I captured the night sky panorama with the Milky Way Arch from 11 pm to 1 am.
- I captured the landscape panorama at sunrise around 5 am.
While still primarily blue, I wanted this image to have some bursts of bright warm colors. Just enough to attract the eye to the things you can recognize and identify with in the image. Namely, the Matterhorn, the Breithorn, the Milky Way, and the human standing.
Exploring can mean different things for each one of us, but I believe the process is similar for all; seeking within and beyond.
This is what this artwork represents.
In a world that is already so well documented, you can still find new ways to explore it. And this is what it is all about.
A big thank you to the Cervo for supporting this project, which will now lie with them as a gift for the honor they did me.
Keep exploring, and go beyond.
Angel
www.cervo.swissBEYOND EXPLORING