Between Heaven and Earth
Explore Landscapes #38: The first in a series of reviews of books that have influenced my photographic journey. Since my teens I've been fascinated by the mountains and photography, thanks to books.
If you‘re new here, welcome. I’m a professional landscape photographer and hiking/backpacking guide specializing in Joshua Tree National Park. My weekly Monday newsletter is typically a long-form ‘teaching’ article for paid subscribers and workshop attendees. My free Thursday newsletter should interest a wider audience and is typically about my hiking, volunteering, or workshop adventures. I look forward to helping you improve your photography!
I’ve been drawn to the mountains since my teenage years when I started hiking and exploring the UK. I’m most at peace in the mountains; they allow me to think and just be.
Soon after graduating from college, I regularly scoured the shelves of second-hand book shops, looking for books on photography, mountains, or, preferably, both!
My first find was Between Heaven and Earth by Gaston Rébuffat and Pierre Tairraz. I love this book, and I have read its pages and stared intently at the images many times.
Between Heaven and Earth was awarded the Grand Prix at the Tenth International Mountain and Exploration Film Festival at Trento, Italy, in 1961. The book is a commentary on the award-winning film.
I can clearly remember my teenage years dreaming about someday going to the Alps and climbing the mountains pictured in the book. In my early twenties, I spent three weeks in Chamonix, in the French Alps. The dream became a reality, but I wasn’t sufficiently prepared physically or mentally, and the mountains humbled me. But that’s a story for another day.
This book ‘got me into’ black-and-white images of mountains. At the time, I didn’t even know who Ansel Adams was, nor had I seen any of his amazing images of Yosemite and elsewhere.
The book contains mainly black and white images, but some exceptional color images are occasionally included. The pre-dawn light on the Aiguilles de Blantière and du Fou is magical.
It’s fascinating to see the historic climbing equipment Rébuffat’s climbing group(s) used on such technical terrain. I dreamt about climbing up to and staying at those remote mountain huts.
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The images clearly show how steep and unrelenting the routes followed were, as well as the majesty and incredible landscape of the Alps. Filming while climbing must have been quite the logistical challenge as the video equipment they would have used would have been heavy and bulky.
The towering ice towers and bridges (seracs) formed by intersecting crevasses on a glacier look rightly terrifying. These seracs are commonly house-sized or larger; they are dangerous to mountaineers since they may topple with little warning. They form the initial defenses that must be breached before accessing the slopes of a mountain.
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If you’ve ever climbed with a partner roped together over rough and/or snowy terrain, you know exactly how much you depend on each other for security and safety. The images in the book, paired with the climbers' words, include many examples of how much trust and faith they have in one another.
My two favorite images in the book are the double-page spreads of Mont Blanc and the Chamonix Aiguilles. The light and tonal range captured in both images is wonderful.
Re-reading the book to write this review has made me long to go back to the Alps again.
Next month’s book review is of David Hockney: A Bigger Picture. The book illustrates an exhibition held at the Royal Academy of Arts in London in 2012 that featured vivid paintings inspired by the East Yorkshire landscape, created especially for the Royal Academy's galleries.
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Another Week Out East by Kevin Hansen
Nigel Danson by Photosnack
industrial #47 by PerfectLight
Art of the Day: John Duncan's "The Riders of Sidhe" by Pamela Leavey
You’re Going To Waste A Lot Of Drafts As A Writer by Tom Kuegler
The Western War on Wildlife Continues by Jonathan P. Thompson
Don't Google It by Stephen Moore
All the Stuff We've Dug Up by Andrew Smith
Fabulous images - thank you for introducing me to a book I was unaware of. I can see why those scenes have really stuck with and influenced you.
Interesting post. I can think back to a few books that have had a similar influence on my photography. One is The Great White South by Herbert G. Ponting. The story about his travels and photography on Scott's South Pole Expedition resonated with my work experience in the Arctic and my love for photography. I have owned a copy of his book for probably 40 years now. And am still blown away by his ability to capture powerful images under very difficult circumstances.