A visual essay by Catherine Lemble
The great white vastness
Spitsbergen, Norway
A vision by Catherine Lemble
Nothing prepares you for Spitsbergen, one of the world’s northernmost settlements. My camera and I have crossed many a mountain and solitary landscape, yet this place looked nor felt like anything I had seen before. The surreality of the great white vastness took me by surprise. I spent my days here hiking in the snow. The cold froze my phone’s battery to zero. I could hear the wind rushing alongside my ears and cheeks. There aren’t any trees standing in Spitsbergen; the cold ony permits this eternal, naked landscape, covered in white, pillow-like mountains. I never felt more happy, hearing nothing but the cracking of snow underneath my treading feet.
Every door of every house and car is left open in Spitsbergen.
Words and photography. Catherine Lemblé
Traveller/s
Catherine Lemble
Photographer
Catherine Lemblé received her Master’s Degree in Photography at Luca School of Arts, Brussels in 2013. She had her first solo exhibition at Mint Gallery, Ghent in 2016. She is currently working on her first photo book. Mountains and solitary landscapes are a continuous thread throughout her work, as she searches for the symphony between nature and its inhabitants.
@catherine.lemble
