Ah, the trees of Saint-Lizier* — and trees in general. I love them so much that I decided to make them the subject of this week’s post. Lately I’ve been photographing trees left, right and centre. And strangely enough, not always in colour. I’ve realised, in fact, that trees are even more beautiful in black and white.
The trees of the Bishops’ Palace at Saint-Lizier
Photographing trees in black and white?
Trees are a vivid, luscious green, and the Ariège is no exception. On my first visit, I could have sworn I’d been transported to Ireland — the grass was that luxuriantly green. Yet when I came to work on my new book Regards sur le Couserans, I opted decisively for black and white. The results genuinely surprised me.
It’s not entirely new to me, mind you — I’ve been shooting in black and white all my life. There was a time when, if you wanted to enlarge your own prints, you simply had no choice in the matter, unless you happened to be very well off, which I certainly wasn’t. And colour darkroom work from the 1980s is precisely the sort of thing that makes you pine for black and white.
From the trees of Saint-Lizier to the rocky shrubs of Château-Thierry
Colour or black and white?
With the image above, it’s plain to see that colour — even though the process has come a long way since the 1970s and 80s — adds absolutely nothing. Quite the contrary, in fact. Black and white is unrivalled when it comes to bringing out stone, cloud, shadow and contrast. And it neatly sidesteps those blank white or flat blue skies that have precious little to offer. You could also strip out all the colour while keeping a single selective hue (green being the most interesting here). That’s something I’ll come back to in another post.
Unter den Linden
One weekend, a few years ago — as we do most years — we went to visit what is known as the “Bishops’ Palace” at Saint-Lizier. Turning round, I caught sight of this magnificent centuries-old lime tree. It’s impossible to convey any sense of its scale without a human figure in the frame for reference. The result is striking, and once again — just as with the Château-Thierry image above — colour would have added nothing.
From Saint-Lizier to Sucy-en-Brie
Ever since that revelation about trees in black and white, I’ve been out photographing all manner of specimens in that mode — and what’s more, in square format, which I find particularly satisfying aesthetically. I discovered this with the new Z9 I took on last year (already 6,000 shutter actuations in such a short time — a sure sign of how much pleasure I take in shooting with it). If black and white lends itself to a degree of afterthought in photography (in native RAW mode, which always retains the colour information), square format is final. There’s no going back. It’s a commitment on the photographer’s part, not unlike what happens with film. You can’t really cheat.
With a mix of greenery, trees and architecture, the effect is even more striking — as in this view of Villeneuve-en-Couserans in the Ariège, also shot in black and white under the fantastic November sunshine.
More recently, it was Sucy-en-Brie that drew us out, camera slung over the shoulder, in search of a remarkable tree I’d spotted a few years back on the GR footpath that runs from Paris to Ozoir-la-Ferrière in Seine-et-Marne. The photographs speak for themselves. Let the images do the talking — and let black and white pay its tribute to these quiet, beautiful living things.
* Saint-Lizier is a historic town with roots going back to Antiquity, perched on a hillside above the River Salat, just outside Saint-Girons in the Ariège. For centuries it was the ecclesiastical capital of the Couserans and the seat of its bishopric, until the latter was dissolved under the Concordat of 1801.
You can browse my portfolios on nature and landscapes on this site.
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Je suis photographe et aquarelliste. Je pratique la photographie depuis l'enfance et la photographie numérique depuis 1995. J'en ai fait mon activité principale en 2021. Je possède un studio photo dans le 15e arrondissement de Paris
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[…] houses abound in the Ariege, in the Pyrenees. This is especially the case for Saint Lizier, on top of the beautiful 12th-century cloister (above), as in the picture below with this strange […]
[…] maisons remarquables abondent en Ariège, dans les Pyrénées. C’est notamment le cas de Saint-Lizier (en haut) avec son joli cloître du XIIe siècle (ci-dessus). Ou encore sur la photo ci-dessous […]