What’s rare about the moment captured here in Alpine Modern is that we’re actually looking at snow clinging to the branches of a forest reflected in a small alpine lake. Usually, if it’s cold enough for snow to stick it’s cold enough that the lake is able to and likely will freeze – in fact, this particular lake is frozen for 9-10 months out of the year, making a reflective shot like this nigh impossible to catch. By being present at the first snowfall of the season, when the water hadn’t quite frozen over yet, I was able to capture this rare and splendid moment.

An image like this depends so much on the wind to provide the right abstraction – you must navigate a delicate line between clarity and chaos. While a flat mirror gives too much context, too much motion would lose any suggestion of what you’re looking at. Catching the exposure at the ideal balance results in an image that is both obvious and abstract, and encapsulates the very essence of the moment. Alpine Modern perfectly captures the twilight of seasons and the arrival of winter. It’s the elements of the image that bring this time of year to life – I particularly love the lines of the trees and the subtle greys and greens as they play on the surface of the water. Arriving in this landscape in those precious few days when seasons meet created a sense of magic in exposing such a fragile and spectacularly brief moment in time.