Winter strips the Alps down to their essentials. The colour palette narrows to whites and greys and the deep blue of a cold sky, and somehow that simplicity makes everything feel more dramatic. Snow settles over the landscape like silence made visible, smoothing out the rough edges of summer and leaving behind something pure and austere.

The light behaves differently in winter. Low on the horizon, it rakes across snow-covered slopes at a shallow angle, throwing every small undulation into relief. A shadow can stretch for hundreds of metres. Midday brings a brilliance that is almost blinding, while dusk turns the peaks pink and orange before the cold blue of night takes hold.

There is a particular stillness in the mountains at this time of year. The tourists thin out, the summer sounds disappear, and what remains is wind, snow, and stone. It demands attention and patience, but for those willing to wait, the Alps in winter reveal a raw, unguarded beauty.

These photographs are collected from those quiet winter days, moments where the cold and the light conspired to produce something worth stopping for.