I photograph mountains because, for a long time, images allowed me to express things I could not always put into words.
In my twenties, I was very introverted. I could feel a great deal without necessarily being able to share it. Photography gradually gave me another language: light on a ridge, a tiny silhouette in the middle of a glacier or a few seconds of colour before nightfall could sometimes convey more accurately what I wanted to express.
The mountains became the natural setting for this way of expressing myself. Even today, this is what guides my work: conveying what these landscapes make me feel, showing places not everyone can access and sometimes allowing someone to rediscover, in a photograph, a place that is already part of their own story.
From my first DSLR to mountain photography
My story with photography began long before AluArtMountains, and even before I truly considered myself a photographer.
I bought my first DSLR in 2012. It was an entry-level camera, but it gave me something new: the ability to choose my own settings and try to understand why an image worked or did not.
I taught myself with books, the Internet, plenty of trial and even more error.
I was already active in the mountains: hiking, skiing, climbing and then mountaineering. The camera naturally began to come with me. At first, I did not necessarily head out to make a photograph. I went out to be outdoors, walk, climb or ski, and the camera came along in case something happened.
In 2016, photography became a second professional activity and I took on the status of an author-photographer. From 2017, mountain photography genuinely took a central place in my work. I also began using a drone to explore certain landscapes from a different angle.
The Alps remain my main territory, but other landscapes have shaped my eye over the years, notably the Dolomites, Iceland and Norway. I find there what has attracted me from the beginning: relief, open spaces, light and that very particular feeling that comes when you realise how small you are in front of the landscape.
Photography has never replaced the experience of the mountains for me. It became a way to preserve a few seconds of it, then pass them on.
Saying through images what I could not always say with words
This is probably the most personal part of my journey.
For much of my twenties, I was very introverted. Talking about what I felt did not come naturally. Through photography, I discovered another way to communicate.
I could show an image without having to explain immediately why that scene had affected me. Someone else could look at it, feel something different and sometimes even project their own story onto it.
A mountain photographed at sunrise is never just a mountain. There is waking up in the dark, the cold, the silence, sometimes several hours of effort to be in the right place, then the waiting.
And suddenly, for a few minutes, the light arrives and completely transforms what was in front of you.
The final image obviously does not show all of that. But when it works, I like to think it keeps something of it.
Photography became my way of communicating with others without needing to explain everything.
Ski mountaineering: going farther to see the mountains differently
My photography developed alongside my sporting practice in the mountains. Among all these activities, ski touring and ski mountaineering have held a special place.
I like this way of moving through the mountains because it forces you to take your time. You have to climb before descending, observe the snow, read the terrain, choose a route, leave early and sometimes accept changing the plan completely when conditions are not what you imagined.
Photographically, skiing also gave me access to atmospheres and viewpoints I probably would never have encountered otherwise: valleys still in shadow, summits lit long before the rest of the landscape, a single track on a slope or a skier becoming almost tiny against the relief.
This passion led me to take part in various projects in the outdoor world and notably to collaborate with Millet Mountain and ZAG Skis around ski touring and ski mountaineering.
What interested me in these projects was not only photographing the action. I liked showing the day as a whole: the ascent, the effort, the conditions, the tracks in the snow, the summits and the very modest place we occupy in the landscape.
Photographing the Alps also means telling the story of a territory
Over the years, my images began to circulate beyond my own networks. I had the opportunity to work with specialist magazines, mountain organisations, outdoor brands and institutional and tourism bodies.
I have notably worked with the Département de la Savoie and the Département de la Haute-Savoie, as well as with various local organisations. I was also a Savoie Mont Blanc ambassador for several years.
These collaborations naturally matched what I was already trying to do with my own photographs: show that a mountain territory is not limited to a few famous summits or ski resorts.
There are the great faces, of course, but also refuges, valleys, alpine pastures, lakes, villages, forests, glaciers, wildlife and all those places sometimes discovered after several hours of walking.
Making people want to look at the mountains gradually became as important to me as technically succeeding in a photograph.
Showing places not everyone can access
Some Alpine landscapes are immediately accessible. Others require several hours of walking, a night in a refuge, skis, sometimes travel in high-mountain terrain, or simply the willingness to get up well before sunrise.
Not everyone has the desire, time, physical condition or sometimes the possibility to reach these places.
Photography can then play a very simple role: opening a window.
It will never replace being there, feeling the cold or hearing the silence of a snow-covered valley. But it can show that such a place exists. It can make someone want to discover it or simply allow them to stop for a few seconds in front of something beautiful.
This desire also comes with an awareness of the fragility of these landscapes. Photographing the mountains for several years inevitably means observing how they change: glaciers, snow, high-altitude ecosystems, seasons.
Sharing their beauty is also, at my own scale, a way of reminding people that they deserve to be looked at, understood and respected.
What I look for when I photograph a landscape
I have never wanted to photograph the mountains by applying a recipe. An image can be prepared over several days or appear without warning.
For some outings, I look at the weather, the orientation of the terrain, the position of the sun, timings, access and compositional possibilities. I sometimes return to the same place several times because the light I imagined never appeared.
At other times, everything happens in a few seconds: a break in the clouds, a ridge catching the light before the rest of the massif, a sea of clouds forming in a valley or a silhouette positioning itself exactly where it finally gives the landscape scale.
I am particularly drawn to photographs with depth: several overlapping reliefs, a natural line leading the eye, a refuge or mountaineer that helps convey the dimensions of the place.
I also like using tracks, diagonals and contrasts of light to construct the image. In the mountains, a few metres of differently lit snow can sometimes be enough to guide the entire gaze.
A telephoto lens also allows me to bring very distant planes visually closer and turn an immense landscape into a much more graphic composition.
I develop this approach in my mountain photography guides, including content on composition and depth, sunrise photography and mountain photography settings.
First and last light, and nights in refuges
If there are moments to which I remain particularly attached after all these years, they are sunrises and sunsets in the mountains.
It is not only about colour. What I like most is the transition. Before sunrise, the valleys remain cold and blue while the summits sometimes begin to catch the first light. In the evening, the process reverses: the relief gradually disappears into shadow and a few ridges keep the light for a few minutes longer.
These moments are very short. A scene that seems flat ten minutes earlier can suddenly gain volume, then look completely different again a few minutes later.
Nights in refuges are also part of what I deeply enjoy in the mountains. They allow you to already be up there when the day disappears, then witness the first light without having to reach the place from the valley floor.
I like this pause: leaving the usual rhythm, spending the night in the middle of the massif and knowing that, on waking, the landscape may be completely different from the day before.
The cold, the snow, the still-isolated refuge and that band of light appearing on the horizon: exactly the kind of moment for which I like to be at altitude early in the morning.
Much of the landscape still remains in cool tones while the first rays begin to reveal the summits.
This passion also appears in the collections dedicated to sunrises in the Alps, sunsets and mountain refuges.
The equipment I use in the mountains
Equipment matters, particularly when photographs then need to support large-format printing. But for me it remains a tool. A camera or lens will never replace good light, a viewpoint or being in the right place at the right time.
For my ground-based photography, I mainly use a Nikon D850, with three NIKKOR zooms covering most of my needs:
- NIKKOR 16–35 mm f/4 for wide landscapes, foregrounds and scenes in which I want to emphasise depth;
- NIKKOR 24–70 mm f/2.8 as a versatile zoom for much of my landscape photography;
- NIKKOR 70–200 mm f/2.8 to isolate a summit, visually bring several planes closer together or work with details in the relief.
The telephoto lens plays an important role in my work. In the mountains, photographing farther away does not necessarily mean showing more. On the contrary, tightening the frame often simplifies a scene, compresses different reliefs or brings out very localised light.
For aerial photography, I also use a DJI Mavic 2 Pro. The drone has allowed me to extend my work from the air and discover forms in the landscape invisible from the ground: the geometry of a ridge, the shape of a valley, the curves of the snow or the way several reliefs fit together.
I nevertheless see aerial photography as a complementary viewpoint. Whether I photograph from a trail, on skis or from the air, the goal remains the same: to construct an image that makes you want to stop and look.
From the field to photography guides
Over the years, my relationship with equipment has changed. I am less interested in a technical specification sheet than in what equipment actually allows me to do outdoors: its weight in the bag, how it behaves in the cold, the focal length that works in a given situation or how well a file holds up to a large enlargement.
That field experience is what I share in AluArtMountains content. Settings, depth of field or the choice of a focal length only matter to me when they answer a concrete situation encountered in the mountains.
I cover these subjects in my guides on sharpness and depth of field, exposure settings and Milky Way photography in the mountains.
Discover the mountain photography guides and advice →
Vanoise and Écrins, the two massifs closest to my heart
The Alps are immense and I have become attached to many places. But if I had to choose two areas in the French Alps, I would unhesitatingly choose Vanoise and Écrins.
They are the two massifs and national parks to which I feel most attached. I have spent a great deal of time there and made an important part of my mountain photography there.
Yet they are very different. That is probably also why I love them both so much.
Vanoise: a massif I always return to
Vanoise has a variety I particularly enjoy. You can begin a day in fairly gentle alpine pastures and, a few hours later, find yourself facing glaciers, limestone walls and high summits.
I also like the way human presence fits into the landscape: a refuge, a path, a few tracks in the snow. These elements give scale without taking over the scene.
Grande Casse, Aiguille de la Vanoise, Pralognan-la-Vanoise, the Gébroulaz glacier and the Valette refuges are among the places that immediately bring images and memories to mind.
The sun reaches the summits before the valley floor. For a few minutes, the mountain almost seems to emerge from the shadows.
A highly graphic mountain whose limestone lines immediately give structure to the image.
I have brought together part of my experience of the massif in the guide Where to photograph Vanoise?, followed by several field guides on Lac des Vaches, Col de la Vanoise, La Valette, Dent Parrachée and Grande Casse.
See all Vanoise photo guides →
Discover Vanoise photo prints →
The Écrins: a rawer mountain environment
The Écrins give me a different feeling. I sense the progression towards the high mountains more strongly there.
You move up a valley, the slopes close in, the forests gradually disappear and the landscape becomes more mineral. The great summits do not always reveal themselves immediately. Sometimes you have to travel a long way before the scenery truly opens up.
Valgaudemar, the Rouies plateau, Sirac, Barre des Écrins and Pré de Madame Carle are among those places where the scale of the massif is immediately apparent.
That is probably what I look for most in the Écrins: making the size of the mountains felt rather than simply showing them.
Ice, snow, rock and successive planes: an image in which the eye can truly measure the depth of the massif.
The summit emerges above the clouds. Here, the weather shaped the image almost as much as the relief itself.
The restrained light lets the walls, textures and valley build almost the entire landscape by themselves.
I have also written a complete guide to the different areas of the massif in Where to photograph the Écrins?, complemented by guides to Pré de Madame Carle, La Meije, the Emparis plateau and Valgaudemar.
See all Écrins photo guides →
Discover Écrins photo prints →
Sharing the places that have stayed with me
Over time, I wanted to go farther than the photograph itself. When a place has marked me, I also like explaining what I found interesting there: the type of landscape, the way light moves, possibilities for composition or simply what makes me want to return.
That idea gave rise to much of the Alpine photography destination guides published on AluArtMountains.
I do not want them to become simple lists of “spots”. An interesting photograph does not come only from a GPS coordinate. You have to understand the place, know what you are looking for, observe and sometimes accept that conditions decide for you.
Chamonix, Aiguilles Rouges, glaciers, lakes and high mountains around the massif.
Photograph Mont-Blanc →Grande Casse, refuges, high-altitude lakes, glaciers and Savoie landscapes.
Photograph Vanoise →Glaciers, Valgaudemar, Meije, Emparis and great high-mountain landscapes.
Photograph the Écrins →Explore all Alpine photography destination guides →
Places that make you want to return to the mountains
Some content is less about technical guides than selections built around the landscapes that have left the strongest impression on me.
A refuge beneath a summit, a perfectly calm lake, a glacier or a viewpoint can be enough to give an entire day its identity. These are often the details that remain in memory long after coming back down.
- Discover the most beautiful refuges in the French Alps
- Explore the most beautiful lakes in the French Alps
- Discover the great glacial landscapes of the Alps
- Explore Alpine viewpoints and panoramas
Explore all selections of the most beautiful places in the Alps →
A landscape is never just a backdrop
Over time, I have understood that a mountain photograph can be viewed in two very different ways.
For someone who does not know the place, a photograph of Grande Casse, Mont-Blanc or the Écrins can be a discovery.
But for someone who has already been there, it can represent much more.
That summit might be the one climbed with a friend. That valley might bring back a family holiday. That refuge, a night spent with someone. That lake, a hike done years earlier.
Sometimes a simple relief can bring back an entire moment in life.
The photograph is the same for everyone. What it awakens belongs to the person looking at it.
This became a fundamental idea in the way I see my work: allowing someone to bring into their home not only a beautiful landscape, but sometimes a place to which they connect part of their own story.
AluArtMountains was born from this idea
In 2024, I created AluArtMountains to give a new form to this photographic work.
I first wanted my images to be able to leave screens, be printed large and recover some of the presence you feel when a landscape genuinely fills your field of vision.
For AluArtMountains, I chose matte aluminium Dibond as the gallery's main support: a thin, rigid support offering excellent flatness and a contemporary appearance that limits reflections while allowing the photograph to fill the entire visible surface.
But the project quickly went beyond simply printing my own photographs.
I wanted to be able to answer someone looking for a precise place: the summit they see from home, a valley they return to every year, the massif of their childhood or the landscape of a hike shared with someone.
The Alps are too vast to be told by a single photographer
I have not photographed all of the Alps. And I never will be able to.
There are thousands of valleys, summits, refuges, villages and viewpoints. A single photographer could not honestly claim to tell all of that.
That is why AluArtMountains became a multi-author mountain photography gallery.
Alongside my own work, I seek out and select photographs by other authors when they match the artistic direction I want for the gallery.
I am not simply looking for a spectacular image. I look for a photograph that gives identity to the place it represents: an image that makes someone want to discover it or, conversely, immediately brings back a memory for someone who already knows it.
The photographers I select do not need to photograph exactly as I do. Their point of view must remain their own. What brings us together is rather this ability to use landscape to convey something.
Every work presented on AluArtMountains naturally remains attributed to its true author. The photographer's name is shown on every product page. When “Pierre Thiaville” appears, the photograph is mine.
My photographic work beyond AluArtMountains
Over the years, some of my photographs and my journey have also been published or presented by media and organisations in the mountain world.
I see them less as a list of references than as a continuation of what first made me want to photograph: showing these landscapes to people who were not with me when they appeared.
- Futura — portrait of Pierre Thiaville, mountain photographer
- Futura — the Alps and Dolomites through my photographs
- LensCulture — The mountain in all its forms
- Mountain Wilderness — “Refuges, man at the gates of the wild mountain” — featuring my photograph of the Col de la Vanoise refuge on the cover.
From photographic file to photo print
A photograph intended for large-format printing is not prepared in exactly the same way as an image intended for a phone or social network.
I specifically check resolution, sharpness, detail, contrast and framing so that the image remains coherent once enlarged.
Some of my photographs can also be adapted to specific dimensions, subject to the available resolution and the composition of the image.
AluArtMountains photo prints are made to order on matte aluminium Dibond. When a standard size does not match the wall or chosen landscape, a mock-up and custom crop can be studied without stretching or distorting the photograph.
Professional projects and photographic licences
Photographs of which I am personally the author can also be considered for various professional projects: tourism communication, publishing, digital campaigns, display, decoration or other media.
A licence then defines the authorised uses precisely. I can naturally grant rights directly only for my own photographs, not for works by the other authors represented in the gallery.
Discover licences and professional projects →
Rediscover a place, or discover a new one
If you are looking for a particular summit, valley, refuge or Alpine landscape, you can browse the gallery's collections and guides or simply contact me.
Perhaps you are looking for a photograph because you find the landscape beautiful.
Perhaps you are looking for the place where you climbed your first summit, spent a week with your family, skied with friends or shared a day with someone important to you.
In both cases, that is exactly why AluArtMountains exists.