Untersberg Mountain Light
During my time in Austria, I took a day trip to Untersberg to immerse myself in the area’s mountain landscapes. I set out early in the morning to capitalise on the unique light which eases its way from the east across the mountains’ slopes and pronounces the many gullies, ridges and crevasses often hidden in plain view. Fortunately, though the cloud was quite thick when I first arrived, the main bulk began to ease off and disperse with the rise of the sun, and this caused some really beautiful highlights and shadows to dance their way across the mountain faces.
For this image I set my lens to the west where a really dramatic scene was unfolding as low-hanging clouds seemingly tumbled their way down a mountain. Flooding its valleys and shrouding its peak, the clouds created a really striking layering effect, almost 3D, to make the scene even more dramatic. In particular, what I love is all of the textures that you can see, from the detail of the jagged rock surfaces at the top to the snow-capped middle mountain to the smattering of forest at the lower end of the image. In homage to this, I decided to present the image in black and white to emphasise these textures between the cloud, mountain and trees, as well as the face’s highlights and shadows too.
During my time in Austria, I took a day trip to Untersberg to immerse myself in the area’s mountain landscapes. I set out early in the morning to capitalise on the unique light which eases its way from the east across the mountains’ slopes and pronounces the many gullies, ridges and crevasses often hidden in plain view. Fortunately, though the cloud was quite thick when I first arrived, the main bulk began to ease off and disperse with the rise of the sun, and this caused some really beautiful highlights and shadows to dance their way across the mountain faces.
For this image I set my lens to the west where a really dramatic scene was unfolding as low-hanging clouds seemingly tumbled their way down a mountain. Flooding its valleys and shrouding its peak, the clouds created a really striking layering effect, almost 3D, to make the scene even more dramatic. In particular, what I love is all of the textures that you can see, from the detail of the jagged rock surfaces at the top to the snow-capped middle mountain to the smattering of forest at the lower end of the image. In homage to this, I decided to present the image in black and white to emphasise these textures between the cloud, mountain and trees, as well as the face’s highlights and shadows too.
During my time in Austria, I took a day trip to Untersberg to immerse myself in the area’s mountain landscapes. I set out early in the morning to capitalise on the unique light which eases its way from the east across the mountains’ slopes and pronounces the many gullies, ridges and crevasses often hidden in plain view. Fortunately, though the cloud was quite thick when I first arrived, the main bulk began to ease off and disperse with the rise of the sun, and this caused some really beautiful highlights and shadows to dance their way across the mountain faces.
For this image I set my lens to the west where a really dramatic scene was unfolding as low-hanging clouds seemingly tumbled their way down a mountain. Flooding its valleys and shrouding its peak, the clouds created a really striking layering effect, almost 3D, to make the scene even more dramatic. In particular, what I love is all of the textures that you can see, from the detail of the jagged rock surfaces at the top to the snow-capped middle mountain to the smattering of forest at the lower end of the image. In homage to this, I decided to present the image in black and white to emphasise these textures between the cloud, mountain and trees, as well as the face’s highlights and shadows too.