Vertical No Limit - Moutain Photography

The mountain landscape is a field in which photography has really been able to innovate, while remaining part of a pictorial, scientific and cultural tradition born in the 18th century. It was in 1861 that the Bisson brothers and Joseph Tairraz took their first photographs in the Mont Blanc massif, an unprecedented feat due to the extreme conditions and the perilous nature of the undertaking.

The term “alpinism” appeared in 1876, heralding another photographic approach, one that reflected the spirit of conquest and the overcoming of a mystical and spiritual vision of the mountain. The main landscape photographers of the 19th century were able to translate this new approach to the mountain with talent. Throughout the 20th century, the vision of mountain photographers developed in a spectacular way; digital technology allowed new approaches that renewed the genre in a creative and original way. Most of the photographs come from the collections of the Musée de l’Elysée. Two hundred of them allow us to understand the directions in which mountain photography has developed (science, tourism, mountaineering, art) and the formal aspects used by photographers from 1840 to the present day (frontality, verticality, and low-angle photography, for example).