After years of drooling over photos by photographers like Enrico Fossati, I finally made the trip last October to shoot the French and Swiss alps. I had a trip like this lined up last year during the same time frame, but I had to cancel at the last minute due to a family emergency. To help with the exploration this year, I rented an apartment in Chamonix, right at the foot of Mt Blanc and used it as a home base as I explored much of the Jura Mountains and French alps around me before moving on to shoot in nearby Switzerland. I thought three weeks would be more than enough, but it turned out to be far too short a time to get to all of the locations I wanted to explore, so I definitely need to go back. If you’d like to see my behind the scenes footage of these areas including time lapses, etc, my France & Switzerland episodes will be going up in a few weeks on my youtube channel, so please feel free to follow me over there via the link below.
Driving through the Jura Mountains and the French Alps easily surpassed my expectations. I’m not sure what I was expecting, but I had no idea that France had that many waterfalls. Some of these valleys have been described as “Rivendell” by other photographers, and for good reason. On my way into Chamonix every day, I would pass one particular valley that had several waterfalls visible from the highway, and NO ONE was stopping to take photos. One of them was very similar to Bridal Veil in Yosemite and when I finally managed to find my way off of the highway, I seemed to be the only one enjoying the view. We get used to powerlines and freeways here in Southern California. In Southeastern France, they get used to having waterfalls around every corner, especially after a big storm.
If you ever have the opportunity to shoot there in October, while the leaves are changing and a storm is clearing, I definitely recommend taking it. I can’t begin to tell you how many times my head exploded over those three weeks. I haven’t always had the best luck as a photographer, but I definitely had some ideal conditions while I was there this year and even managed to snag a shot of the Tsuchinshan-Atlas Comet over the Matterhorn after missing the train, which made up for the 3 hour walk back down to Zermatt. I had the time of my life and I definitely can’t wait to go back.
If you make it over to my YouTube channel, please be sure to say hi! :)
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