Author: JH

Well, my confidence in the human skeleton is sky high these days. My surgeon removed the metal fixtures he applied after last year’s fall in the mountains, and the shattered elbow feels as good as new already. I just had to make a photo of the metal pieces as well, simply because I’m quite amazed how much stuff fits into one joint, and how well things can grow back together. A nice touch: When I opened my eyes after anesthesia, the first thing I saw right in front of me where the nicely steamed metal pieces, *all* of them, sealed in a plastic bag. There was a risk that the nails would not come out in one piece, but they did. And the cut is modest compared to last year. As I said earlier: If my work is remotely as good as that of my surgeon, I will always be alright.

Perhaps the most satisfying thing about a day in the mountains, to me, is that nothing ever stays the same for more than a few minutes. If you walk into any direction for half an hour, your perspective of the surroundings will be entirely different. Even if you stay put in one spot, the light will have changed — and the weather may well have shifted from comfortably warm to freezing cold, and back again. These clouds literally flew by during a spring storm at around 9.000 feet. It was so cold that after taking my gloves off I only managed to take two frames. An hour later, back down in a valley about 1.600 feet below, you could have walked around in a shirt.

This image is hard to judge for me because I had to work hard to get it. It is from a narrow valley just below the tree line, where lone skiers come down from their tours higher up. The trees stand on a steep slope facing north, with the sun coming directly from above/behind. At this time of the year, on a sunny day early in the afternoon, the avalanches start to come down from the southern slopes. That’s where I was when I made this image. Once you’ve climbed up and down an avalanche area, to get just the right angle and the right light, you are tempted to think that the result must be good.

I don’t believe in ‘forced’ images — usually the ones that just ‘appear’ are the good ones. Time will tell.