Same mountain, changing eyes

I have been living in Vegetarium for three months now, and one of the rituals I have developed when I need time for myself is to go for a walk around the hamlet. I almost never take the same route, but there is one place I always return to : no matter which path I take, my steps always lead me back there.

I have photographed this place almost every time I have passed by. I find its valley absolutely splendid, and the mountains overlooking it majestic. Yet it never showed me the same face twice, and that’s also what I find so wonderful and inspiring about it : its changing nature, the fact that it never has the same colour, the same light, the same energy, the same way of moving or being still.

At sunrise, when the mountain wakes up, the silence gives way to the cry of birds diving down into the valley before rising up to the sky. At midday, the intense light reveals every detail, from the colours of the leaves to the houses perched on the opposite mountainside. And in the evening, the forest seems to glow in the low sun, which stretches the shadows and highlights the contours of the landscape.

I saw this same panorama in summer, burning with heat and almost blinding ; I saw it becoming a palette of colours, gold and copper in autumn ; I saw it under a blanket of snow, frozen by the cold gradually setting in. Each season transforms it into a new place, which never ceases to impress and move me. And as I stand before it, I also see the time of my stay passing by ; this viewpoint has become a place of introspection, where I see myself changing and realise everything I am experiencing and learning here. I always love coming back to this landscape because it allows me to find myself again.

Maya