“I love trees,” answers visual artist Elizabeth Sanjuan when asked what inspired her to photograph Japan’s northernmost island, Hokkaido, over four frigid winters. Her new book, “Silent Snow” (Daylight) is a collection of her nearly whited-out landscapes featuring skeletal winter trees.

“The depth of winter” in Hokkaido, with its arctic winds and continuous snowstorms, is both fascinating and challenging, Sanjuan says. “The primary challenge for me is keeping my hands and feet warm in temperatures that can easily drop to single digits. It is a challenge to deal with multiple layers of clothing, taking on and off clamps and snowshoes, all while carrying two bodies and lenses,” she says, adding that she went through several hand and foot warmers a day. “Truly it is mind over matter.” But when she began to see the potential of the images she created with her Sony Alpha 1 and a7RV, the cold became irrelevant, she says. 

Amanda Arnold is a senior editor.