All photos by Claire Droppert. Used with Creative Commons permission.
When it comes to visual themes and concepts like silence and tranquility, minimalist scenes are often the most effective. This makes winter wonderlands among the perfect places to shoot. In the latest installment of her Silence series, Rotterdam-based photographer and designer Claire Droppert takes us to Hemavan-Tarnaby in Sweden, where she captured dramatic snowy scenes as visual representations of piercing silence. If you’re thinking of doing more landscape shoots this winter, we’re sure you’ll find this an inspiring collection.
Frozen Silence is part of a bigger compilation called Silence, which aims to use a simplistic style to capture the distinctness of silence seen in different parts of the world. She looks for tones and mood to put the focus on the characteristics of these locations and capture the feeling invoked by a place without the distraction from other elements. We’ve seen this technique at work in a previous installment titled Dutch Silence, which showcased the regions of South Holland, Brabant, Utrecht, The Wadden Sea, and Sealand.
“The Silence series are created out of interest for the absence of sound witnessed in different locations around the world. Capturing the feeling invoked by the place, all these places have a certain tranquility where remoteness stands out.” Droppert wrote on the series description.
“Captured during the bitterly cold month of December. Temperatures dropped below -10 Celsius and snow regularly fell, adding to the already thick layers of purest white snow. These natural elements helped to create this magical, fairytale landscape, which can be seen through this latest imagery.”
Frozen Silence indeed took advantage of the inherently minimalist visuals of landscapes blanketed in snow, the monochromatic color palette drawing our eyes to the isolation and remoteness of the place. The bleakness also heightened the sense of quietude, loneliness, and biting cold that made this series a dramatic depiction of silence.
Check out our previous features on Claire Droppert’s work, as well as her website and Behance portfolio for her other projects.