This photo dates back to June 2022, when I was in the Basque country for a family reunion. Rather than coming for a weekend, we decided to spend a fortnight there to make the trip worth the long drive.
If you look at a map of France, the French Basque Country is in the south-west, and I live in the north-west. So it's about 8 hours from home, which is why I thought I'd spend some time there.
It's a mid-mountain region where pastoralism is king, nestled in the foothills of the Pyrenees. It's also known for its abundant rainfall, mild climate and gastronomic delights. The Basque region also has a coastline overlooking the Atlantic, renowned for its surf spots. But as the coast is highly touristic, I generally avoid setting foot there. I much prefer the beautiful green mountains that are shrouded in fog almost every morning.
A few days before taking this photo, I went to the Iraty forest. It's Europe's largest beech forest, located between 1300 and 1500 m altitude on the border between France and Spain. Most of it is on the Spanish side of the border. I had gone there to walk and scout locations for my photos, and it was on my second visit that this photo was taken.
I was driving up to a pass on a winding road when, out of the corner of my eye, I spotted this view. I parked my car at the next bend and retraced my steps on foot, armed with my camera, my 100-400mm and my trusty tripod.
In the valley, clouds and fog clung to the foot of the hills, while above, scattered sunbeams filtered through the clouds, illuminating some of the mountains.
I had to wait for a ray of sunlight to strike this little mount. I spotted it as I was scanning the landscape with the 100mm, looking to extract any noteworthy elements from this viewpoint. The temptation would have been to include the whole view with a shorter focal length. The problem with this choice of lens is that very often, when you get to your computer screen, you realize that you've wanted to include too many elements in your frame, and in the end, you find yourself trying to simplify your image by cropping it. If I'd had an interesting foreground, or if my subject hadn't been so far away, I might have considered taking out my 24-70mm. Still, here, on the side of a road with no possibility of moving forward or backwards, the 100mm seemed like a good starting point for a visual exploration of what was in front of me.
I ended up opting for a 180mm focal length in 16:9. This allowed me to include the farmhouse at the bottom right, which gives the scale, and different layers to provide a little depth and eliminate anything that didn't serve my photo while highlighting the curves of the Basque mountains. The lack of depth is the counterpart of the advantages of long focal lengths because, by compressing distances, they tend to give the impression that everything is on the same plane. In this case, I relied on the rays of light to highlight my subject and on the morning mist to create this three-dimensional effect.
Of course, I tried other, longer focal lengths, narrowing in on the illuminated summit, but the farmhouse that gives the scale was no longer in the frame. So this is the one I chose to show you because it's a pretty good representation of what I think the Basque country looks like. High, green mountains surround isolated white and red farmhouses on hillsides.
In the end, I went into the Iraty forest, but the conditions weren't right for woodland photography, so I'm glad I stopped to photograph this view. So don't rely too much on plans; allow yourself to photograph whatever comes your way.
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Dimitri Vasileiou • Editor