Mont Blanc Lines

Excerpted from Mont Blanc Lines, 2022, published in English by Vertebrate Publishing

To a mountaineer or skier, drawing lines is a way of combining their personal vision with the natural form of the mountain, of forever leaving their mark on a summit without touching it other than with a crampon or ski edge, erased by the next storm. The most aesthetic of these lines follow a logical path and immediately become all too obvious. Others, too far from the valley or too forced, are soon forgotten.

Together, all these lines sketch the contours of each mountain, almost allowing them to be recomposed on a blank page.

This Mont Blanc Lines project is at the crossroads between guidebook and landscape photography. The images are taken from a distance, often from the air, and I have always favored beautiful evening and morning light. A big part of my approach was to be as exhaustive as possible, in particular by dusting off old routes forgotten by modern topos, too