Alpine Half-Life is an ongoing project by American photographer Andrew Phelps. Andrew has been living in Europe since 1990. His work is influenced by the cross-cultural lifestyle he now leads, dividing his time between the deserts of Arizona and the Alps of Austria. Recently he released his last book Cubic Feet/Sec. published by FOTOHOF Edition. This is what he says about the Alpine Half-Life series:
I spent so many years living in the Alps without ever really photographing in the mountains, which was strange because the landscape plays such a pivotal role in my work, and here I am living in a powerful landscape deep in tradition and I could never get my hear around photographing it. In 2012 I passed the point where I have lived longer in europe than in the states, and because I have always insisted that the landscape shapes who we are, I figured I needed to start taking a look at the places right outside my door. I grew up in a big, flat, hot place, with endless expanses of wilderness. The Alps are just the opposite of all of these things and therefor always felt a bit abstract to me, I didn’t understand them and certainly couldn’t see myself in them. So Alpine Half-Life was a conscious effort to make a work about the mountains, but not just the physical space, also the cultural relationships between man and the land in a place with a lot of people, little space, and a rich tradition of looking at the land.
Text and images © Andrew Phelps
