Italian landscape photographer Gustav Willeit captures the silent tranquility and majesty of Mother Nature in his series PERAT II. From the mammoth mountainscapes of the Italian Dolomites to the vast glacial seas of Iceland, each photo features a solo human silhouette, representing mankind’s fragility in the face of nature.
Each mesmerizing shot is framed with a human figure in the distance, with their back to the viewer. The subject is often pictured at the base of a misty mountain or at the edge of a cliff, emphasizing their tiny size in comparison to the surrounding, awe-inspiring landscapes. Other than scale, Willeit’s photos also capture the serene silence you might experience while exploring the great outdoors.
“The mountains, depicted in their architecture of incredible variants and infinite chromatic shades, unveil another essential yet invisible element: silence – the kind of silence inviting the viewer to listen to it,” reveals Willeit. “This silence is not disturbed by the presence of the human figure, which is placed in these landscapes like an attempt to present a familiar and graspable element. Yet the effect is quite the contrary: the human figure is not reassuring but escapes reason by raising a feeling of senselessness and impotence.”
You can see more of Willeit’s stunning landscape photography on his website and Instagram.