IO GROUP Industrial Photography

Location Hörselberg-Hainich & Rangendingen, Germany Architect IO GROUP Completion 2024

Every great project starts with a dream. In the case of the Cabane du Glacier de Tortin, it was the dream of a place where everyday life fades away before a breathtaking panorama, filled with memories of past adventures. The Cabane du Glacier de Tortin is Europe's highest privately owned mountain lodge. Located on the slope of the 3,328m high Mont Fort, guests of the lodge overlook the Mont Blanc group with the Tortin Glacier directly at their feet.

For me, these types of photographic productions are also a dream come true. I have been photographing modern architecture in the Alps for many years and can't get enough of it. The feeling of being just a small part of the bigger picture always overwhelms me when I stand on the summit of a mountain.

Video presentation of the projects: Architecture in motion

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Day 1: Weather in the mountains

It's a bumpy start when my assistant Konrad and I sit in the helicopter in the late afternoon after a ten-hour drive. Actually, the flight was planned to coincide exactly with the warm evening sun, which was supposed to cast its rays on the west-facing lodge. But the alpine weather is not negotiable. The helicopter tries in vain to bring us to the glacier from three different valleys, but the cloud cover is too dense. When a steep nosedive from above through a small window in the clouds also failed, we returned to Sion without accomplishing anything. A certain degree of flexibility is always required when shooting in remote locations. Construction progress and photo production are often delayed by adverse weather.

Day 2: The view is everything

The sky looks better the next morning. Only a light veil of clouds stretches over us and we can easily fly to the Cabane du Glacier de Tortin. At this time of year, the snow on Mont Fort is still 4m high and we slip straight into our snowshoes to bring the photo equipment and food into the hut. The final construction work in the lodge has just been completed and we are the first guests to enjoy the magnificent view through the 10m long panoramic window. At 07:00 we started with the first exterior shots with the sky still covered. The diffuse light allows an undisturbed view of the design language of the building designed by Snorre Stinessen, free of shadows. Two interconnected building sections were placed on a concrete base: a slightly inclined flat-roofed building and a modern interpretation of a Finnish hut. Both building sections are united by the panoramic window as a long bar that extends from the flat-roofed building through the pointed roof.

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In the interior, we begin shooting with the main room consisting of a dining area, a seating area with a fireplace, a kitchen and a master bedroom. The interior design from MJD Architectes SA is characterized by a combination of wood and coated steel. This combination reinterprets the concept of an alpine hut in a new way and creates a balance between cosiness and technical sophistication. The view is the focal point of the large main room, both in the interior design and in our photographs. The alpine panorama is beautifully reflected on the back wall of the kitchen and looks like a painting here.

In the master bedroom, the king-size bed can be moved directly in front of the large window or next to the fireplace using rollers. So you fall asleep in the evening warmed by the crackling fire and wake up in the morning with a 180° view of the mountains. For more privacy, the bedroom can also be separated with sliding doors. A further four bedrooms for up to 18 people and three bathrooms are located in the rear part of the building. Here, too, warm wood tones run through the interior as a connecting element. A highlight in the interior is the vestibule of the main entrance. The walls consist of over 100 movable wooden hooks, which can be folded down if required and are used to store hiking (and photo) equipment. To illustrate this concept, we create some stop-motion films, raising and lowering the wooden bars frame by frame.

During the production, we work with two to four cameras simultaneously to create video material and time-lapse videos in addition to the images, which show the movement of light in the building. In this way, hundreds of shots are quickly created in a single day and we can make extensive use of ideal lighting conditions when they arise.

The evening brings us a clear sky and a subtle play of colors in pastel orange tones. The big challenge when photographing mountain huts is always that their most beautiful side faces the valley. From the slope, there is no way to photograph the facade head-on, as the terrain drops away so quickly. That's why I rely on my experience of hundreds of hours of flight as a licensed drone pilot in these situations. With a drone, I can move my camera freely in the room and work out the perfect composition. In these shots, it is important to me to show the architecture in harmony with its surroundings. Nevertheless, the building should stand out prominently from the background and remain the clear focal point of the image.

We take advantage of the good conditions and photographed until late in the evening, before the last light gives way to the darkness of the night. While we have a quick dinner and rest for a few hours, one of the cameras records the Cabane du Glacier de Tortin against the Swiss starry sky.

Day 3: From the first to the last picture in 19 hours.

When my alarm clock rings at 03:30, the moon has just set and the stars have reached their maximum luminosity. In the glow of my headlamp, I trudge across the glacier. A fine layer of ice that has formed on the snow overnight breaks under me. Otherwise there is complete silence. In the distance, the screen of my camera lights up. The first preview images look promising. I start my drone in the dark. The four rotor blades whirr and the drone, equipped with an LED light, rises into the night sky. While the camera continues to take its shots, the drone circles over the roof of the lodge. The soft light from above detaches the building from the background without the incidence of light appearing artificial. Inside, my assistant switches on the lights for a few seconds so that the windows of the house shine without appearing too bright in the picture.

It starts to dawn at 05:00 in the morning. We quickly arrange the furniture for various shots and set subtle accents with a flash to create even more brilliance in the pictures. Further interior shots follow in the morning in indirect, soft light. It is a great advantage of multi-day productions that we can document the building in different lighting moods and thus highlight the individual strengths of the design. While the glaring midday sun is above us, we complete the last pictures on our shot list and treat ourselves to a short lunch break. We don't yet know how much we will need this break for an eventful night.

Another highlight of our shoot is this 680 megapixel image of an overall panorama over the Tortin Glacier. In the highest print resolution of 300dpi, the image can be printed to a size of 550cm and allows a view of the smallest details, such as the tip of Mont Blanc, which is warmly illuminated by the first rays of the day, as shown here.

In the afternoon, it's time for me to take some pictures for my industry partners. I work with several companies that appreciate my work so much that they regularly share my photos with their network, showcasing the architectural projects to millions of followers. This is a win-win situation for everyone involved.

As evening falls again, the drone whirs into the air once more and crosses the Tortin Glacier several times at lightning speed in order to capture a large variety of photo and video perspectives in the short window of the blue hour. In photography, it is often important to wait for the right moment and then, well prepared, to make as much of it as possible.

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Day 4: A miracle comes true

The client of the lodge booked me for my award-winning night shots of architecture under the starry sky (project ENLIGHTEN). These shots are an eye-catcher everywhere and have been published on magazine covers from Germany to China. The recording of these special images requires a camera that records images over hours, which is why I can only produce two motifs per night. For our last night on Mont Fort, we position the camera very close to the hut with an orientation towards the galactic center of the Milky Way, which should be visible above the mountain peaks around 03:00. Full of anticipation for the motif, I go to rest again for a short time to get up at an ungodly hour.
Thickly wrapped in ski clothing, we head out into the middle of the night to take the shot again. When I reach the camera, I can't believe my eyes. Behind the lodge, an AURORA stretches across the entire horizon. The first of its kind in Switzerland for 25 years! Barely perceptible to the naked eye, the veils of light on the camera shine at me in intense orange-magenta. We knew that there should be auroras in Germany that night, but we would never have dreamed that we would see them so far south in Switzerland. A few months later, this picture would earn me a placement in the Awards of the American Photographic Artists and is sure to become one of the most special motifs on any hotel booking portal. Under these conditions, we decide at short notice to embark on a spontaneous night hike across the Tortin Glacier. The snow conditions are ideal and we make good progress safely to photograph the lodge from a greater distance. When we return to our accommodation two hours later, the sun is already rising. There is still time for a soothing coffee, a philosophical conversation and an enjoyable moment of silence in front of the large panoramic window before the helicopter whisks us away from our dream and back into everyday life.

I would like to thank Marc for his incredible hospitality and Konrad for persevering through the very long working days!

Conclusion

In total, our photo production resulted in 115 photographs and 5 video clips or stop-motion and time-lapse recordings, which are currently used by 13 companies in their marketing portfolio. The images have already generated a global reach with a focus on high-spending adventure holidaymakers at the opening of the exclusive lodge and underline the quality of the Cabane du Glacier de Tortin through placements in international photo and architecture competitions. This project is a wonderful example of the added value that high-quality images have on the reach of a construction project.

I look forward to supporting you with unique images for your upcoming construction projects. Feel free to take a look at my full range of services as an architectural photographer or arrange a consultation now for your current passion project.