Michel Comte

An avid mountain climber, Michel Comte shows us in this book the mysterious glacial landscapes of Switzerland, Nepal, Tibet and the US. For this long-term project — whose photographs were mostly taken from open helicopters — Comte periodically returned to the same places for over a decade to record the alterations in landscape and light patterns. The sequential arrangement of the images reveals the breathtaking variety of high-lying, remote corners of the globe that are unknown and inaccessible to most of us. But it also supplies undeniable evidence of the destructive impact of climate change and the ever more rapid disappearance of this surreal and savage world. Defying the allure of classical landscape photography, Comte alternates close-up and partial details with very occasional panoramic views and abstract, vaguely suggestive structures and ambiances to expose the unpredictable, almost moody nature of the giants.