Autumn in the Landes, a field guide

People think the Landes forest is monotonous because they cross it at 130 km/h on the motorway. On foot, at dawn, in October, it is another country: the ferns turn to copper, fog clings to the pine trunks, and the raking light turns every row into a colonnade.

The right windows

The Landes autumn offers two royal slots:

• October fog. After a clear night following a rainy day, fog forms in the damp parcels. It rarely lasts past 10 am — you need to be in position before sunrise.
• November light. The sun no longer climbs high enough to crush the colours: you can shoot almost all day long, unthinkable in summer.

Three places to start

Without giving away my favourite parcels — part of the pleasure is finding your own — three areas lend themselves well to first explorations: the cycle paths between Léon and Moliets, the surroundings of the Huchet current, and the resin-tappers’ old railway lines, which you can sometimes follow for kilometres without meeting a soul.

It was on one of them, in fact, that The Forgotten Line was born, one of the prints of the Under the Pines series.

Happy mist hunting — and if you would rather learn in the field, the photo workshops resume in spring.