Today’s photograph is the Breithorn.
I want to tell you about this photograph because it has one of the most unusual stories behind it. In addition to all the production work, brushstrokes of colour were also added to the image. If you look at it closely, it almost seems as though the entire mountain is moving.
That effect comes both from the nuances created through Red’s Sony lens and from the brushstrokes themselves.
The very idea that a whole mountain could appear to move inside a photograph already seems incredible to me. Something so powerful, so anchored to the earth, that seems to shift, it is almost hard to imagine.
The first time Red showed me this photograph, I thought he wanted to describe how, even when it seems impossible, everything is constantly changing. The earth, the mountains, the glaciers: they are all in perpetual movement, even if that movement is almost imperceptible.
From this photograph, I sense the delicacy and fragility that even mountains can have. Melting glaciers, waterfalls forming, rock worn down by the wind: the mountain is never the same. It changes every day.
This is one of the reasons why I find photography magical. It can give you, and hold forever, a moment that will most likely never return in exactly the same way.
Beautiful, isn’t it?
How deep of me, you may be thinking.
Well, as it turns out, my interpretation was not exactly right.
Not that it was wrong, but Red’s idea was travelling on different tracks. Parallel, yes, but different.
Let me tell you.
All his study for this photograph was based on sound.
Sound?
How can a photograph make you hear a sound?
Once I explain it, I promise you will hear it too.
During Cervino Week, which takes place in mid-July, Red met a French scientist who has been living in Norway for many years. This scientist studies the melting of glaciers and, together with a sound technician, has placed probes inside glaciers down to a depth of 300 metres.
When Red heard what they had managed to record, he was blown away.
He described that sound to me as the noise of a great city, as if you could hear the roar of traffic. It is incredible to think about.
A small anecdote: before we opened La Bottega, there was a moment when Red wanted, and insisted, on playing those sounds in the background inside the Gallery.
Thankfully, I managed to make him change his mind.
Atmospheric, yes. But imagine listening to a glacier in constant motion all day, every day.
Anyway, I am getting sidetracked.
The point is that he wanted his photograph to speak. To sing with the voice of ice.
If you look at it carefully, the movement created by the colours and the streaks recalls the idea of wind.
Sound is made of waves, but these straight lines make me think of a continuous, endless noise. The sound of something that cannot be stopped.
What I can tell you is this: there is no wrong way to read a photograph. But when someone tells you what lies behind the work, it is beautiful to be able to see, and finally notice, something you had missed before.
I will continue to see the mountain moving.
But now I can also hear its sound.
The mountain has its own voice, its own melody, its own song.
And if we listen closely enough, we may all hear it.
