Join the conversation
Subcribe to comment rss feedXavier Arnau Bofarull chooses one of his favourite images
Xavier Arnau Bofarull
I am an amateur photographer based on the Taunus Range, a mountain near Frankfurt am Main, Germany. I have no formal training in either art or photography. Since five years I try to improve my skills on Landscape Photography, and as a member of a Photo Club I took part in some Exhibitions.
Do you have a favourite image that you would like to write an end frame on? We are always keen to get submissions, so please get in touch to discuss your idea. You can read all the previous end frame articles to get some ideas!
Creative imaginery has some of the personality of the artist that made them, a definite viewpoint, and when all is parsed a cohesive history ~Harold Davis
In the early 1970s, mountaineering was my favourite pastime. Among the small circle of friends with whom I went on expeditions, Gaston Rebuffat’s works were among our favourites. There were more famous climbers – more media-savvy, as we would say today – but for some of us, Rebuffat possessed qualities that were rare among the great mountaineers of the time: sobriety, discretion, respect for the mountain, and what we might call an innate elegance in the way he approached climbs and ascents.
When I saw the photo in his book *The Mont Blanc Massif*, I was truly impressed. The photo was the epitome of what mountaineering represented to me: the immense beauty of ridge walks. Walking along a ridge was like flying. When climbing walls, I grew tired of constantly facing the wall. And I had already spent far too many hours facing a wall during my school days.
The photograph Ridge adjacent to the Midi-Plan ridge and the Géant Glacier shows at the bottom the footprints left by the rope team as they made their way towards the ridge; the entire centre of the image is taken up by the ridge, which zigzags its way to the edge of the Géant Glacier, which plunges down in impressive seracs to the left, down the valley. At the end of the ridge, the rope team of two climbers advances slowly. And, as a backdrop, in the shadows, one can make out the opposite slope of the valley.