Provence: Lavender & Limestone

The Provence Collection: The Alpilles & The Camargue

Provence is what the stone allows. Limestone is the first fact of this country: the citadel at Les Baux is built on it, the olive terraces are cut into it, the vine rows run beneath it, the garden is walled with it. It is somewhere in nearly every frame that follows. Then, at the southern end, the rock gives out entirely and becomes water, and the series closes in a wetland and a field.

Shot on location across the Alpilles and south into the Camargue, this series works the two ends of the day, when low sun rakes along a ridge or lies flat on still water rather than falling from overhead. Voyant's standard of a deep anchor holds in the shadowed olive rows and beneath the plane trees, pushing pale limestone, silver leaf and late sky into luminance. Captured at extreme resolution, the texture of weathered stone, olive leaf and standing water is preserved with technical precision.