Red jackets draw the eye across enormous expanses of rock and snow in Robert Bösch's photographs for Mammut. Sometimes the people form a line; elsewhere a small group gathers on a rocky point. The figures make the mountains' scale easier to grasp while becoming part of the composition themselves. These are photographs of people in a landscape, with the placement of those people helping us read the landscape.
Follow the red line through the landscape
Look at the distance between the figures as well as their bright clothing. Repetition can lead the eye along a ridge or across a snowfield, much as a path does in a landscape painting. A tightly grouped summit scene produces a different effect, making the available space feel small against the surroundings. The variety of settings matters: this gallery is not a collection of identical views from one mountain.
The images were organised photographic productions, bringing together climbing experience and a carefully planned visual idea. A neat line of people in a finished photograph can hide the effort required to arrange it. Their positions should therefore be understood as part of the production, rather than read as instructions for choosing a route or assembling a similar group on exposed ground.
A photographed group takes planning
The Matterhorn work connected with the 2015 anniversary of the first ascent in 1865, achieved by a seven-person team. Read more about the temporary lighting in our Matterhorn campaign feature. Then compare Mammut’s circular Jungfrau summit portrait, where projection changes the way the mountain fills the frame.
The Matterhorn anniversary and the wider gallery
The Matterhorn campaign connected with the 150th anniversary of the mountain's first ascent in 1865. Bösch's own project page identifies the Mammut Key Visual 2015 work with that anniversary. The historical ascent was achieved by a seven-person party that included Edward Whymper, rather than by Whymper alone. That shared achievement gives the modern campaign's emphasis on groups a more meaningful context than a simple lone-conqueror story. [1]
There are two rewarding ways to move through the gallery. First take in each mountain as a whole, noticing the shape of the ridge and the balance between dark rock and white snow. Then return to the human figures and follow the lines they create. The red clothing becomes both a practical point of recognition and a repeated visual mark, linking individual climbers with the much larger space around them.
Sources, photography and further reading
Original feature and image attributions:
- Robert Boesch
- My Modern Met
- Viral Nova
- This Is What It Looks Like to Complete 5 Extreme Sports in 1 Hour
- Matterhorn First-Ascent Route Lit Up
- The Top 15 Ski Resorts in Switzerland
- See That Tiny Place In The Mountains? It’s Awesome But You Probably Don’t Want To Go There.
- Breathtaking Photos of Matterhorn From All Hours of the Day
- Matterhorn campaign feature
- Mammut’s circular Jungfrau summit portrait
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