Above the Cloud Line
Fjellvind Journal · Landscape · 2024 · Frames 9
Six weeks in mountain huts, walking out before dawn to be above the cloud when the sun came up. A commission for Fjellvind Journal that grew into a series.
The cloud sits in the valleys most mornings. You only have to climb above it.
Fjellvind Journal asked me for eight pictures of huts. I slept in eleven of them and photographed the view from the door instead. The editor was kind about it, and the pictures ran across twelve pages.
The routine was the same every day. Up at four, coffee from a thermos, an hour of walking in the dark, and then the tripod on a ridge before the first light. On good days the valleys were full of cloud and the peaks stood up out of it like islands.
Four of the frames were made on 4×5 film, which meant carrying a second camera up every hill. I can no longer tell which four.
Contact prints 09 Frames in the series
The spire stood above the cloud for four minutes. I made two frames, and the second one is the print.
- Huts
- Eleven
- Walked
- 214 km
- Climbed
- 16,800 m
- Clear mornings
- 19 of 42
- Camera
- Full-frame mirrorless and a 4×5 field camera
- Lenses
- 24 to 70 mm, 150 mm on the 4×5
- Place
- The Alps and the Norwegian west
- Altitude
- 1,900 to 3,100 m
- Made
- Late summer, 2024
- Print sizes
- 30 × 40, 50 × 70, 70 × 100 cm
- Paper
- Cotton rag, 310 gsm, matte
- Edition
- 20 of each size