Retro Mountain

January 2024. Thollon-les-Mémises. A week skiing with my friend Amaury. I had loaded the Rollei with a Retro 400S two days before leaving. This emulsion, I wanted to see what it would do with snow.

Rollei Retro 400S doesn't whiten snow. It burns it. The grain is charcoal-like, almost violent, and when it meets the raw light of a cloudless winter day, the whites become materials in their own right. I had seen that on ski prints from the 1970s. I wanted to verify if it was still true.

Thollon-les-Mémises is not a spectacle-resort. It's a village-resort, with its concrete balconies overlooking Lake Geneva, its snow-covered rooftops, an atmosphere that feels more like a refuge than a resort. The Guardian of the Peaks established itself as the central photograph quickly. That posture, three-quarters, gaze toward the horizon: I had less than ten seconds to capture it. That's what analog forces you to do. Decide.

The other photographs came from looking for the spaces between. Winter Lawrence from a balcony, a silhouette reduced to its outlines by the backlight of the lake. The Ritual with direct flash in the chalet, without trying to embellish. Mise en Abyme, the only deliberately blurred image in the series: the Rollei photographed, the gaze watching itself.