Although every edition of Chaumont-Photo-sur-Loire provides us with an opportunity to draw visitors’ attention to nature’s precious yet fragile character, this sixth edition is deliberately more silent and meditative, qualities conducive to arousing wonder rather than awareness, so deeply are we convinced that our society has need of beauty and tranquillity.

In the Château’s Upper Galleries, Éric Poitevin presents a selection of undergrowth, trees and dried plants. This great French artist, who uses photography to revisit art history’s various genres (portrait, landscape, still life and nude), is unequalled in his ability to capture the moment and engage in dialogue with visitors.

In a very different register, the no less renowned Korean photographer Bae Bien-U is once again exhibiting his magnificent landscapes at the Domain of Chaumont-sur-Loire. Known in France for his mysterious forests captured in close-up, he presents the vast expanses of his Orum series, images of volcanic hills that could almost be paintings.

Still inside the Château, the photographer with triple citizenship (Canadian, Italian and Serb) Ljubodrag Andric fills the Upper Galleries with images of architecture that seems to have been taken over by nature. Completely decontextualized enigmas of matter and light, echoes of times gone by. The Graubaum und Himmelmeer (Greytree and Heavensea) series exhibited by Loredana Nemes is also a captivating experience. Enthralled by Rügen, the largest of the German islands in the Baltic Sea, the Romanian-born artist brings her own sense of wonder alive for us in depictions of its breathtaking landscapes. On display in the Donkey Stables, her photographs are composed like paintings, highlighting the majestic cycle of the seasons.