Menhir and Dolmen are words which entered into the antiquarian terminology thanks to Thophile Malo Corret de la Tour d'Auvergne's works.

If the terms do not ring a bell, you will instead remember - almost for sure - Obelix chiseling them and selling them in his little village in Gallia, where Asterix' closest friend trades menhirs for whatever he needs and - as a result - the village he lives in (with his dog Dogmatix a.k.a. Idfix, which is the name of Marco's dog!) is filled by menhirs.

Oldest visible proof of our ancestors, actually, menhirs and dolmens are both megaliths, but they differ in shape and use. Menhirs are large upright standing stones.They can be found singly or as part of a group. If their size can vary, their shape isn't: usually they are uneven and squared, tapering towards the top. Nothing is known about their use, even though several assumptions have been made: they could have been used for human sacrifice, as elements of complex ideological systems, early calendars or even as territorial markers. Brittany holds the highest concentration of this kind of artifacts, followed by France and they are part of the late Neolithic and early Bronze Age.

click here to view Megalith panorama

Dolmen - on the contrary - usually consist of three or more upright stones, which support another one, an horizontal capstone. Their use isn't so unclear as the previous case, in fact, it is known that the dolmen was a type of single chamber megalithic tomb and its name in several languages recognize the fact. Suffice it to say that in German these megaliths are called Hünengrab, which means the tomb of the Huns. If Menhirs dot the European landscape from Sweden to Scandinavia, with a large amount in the UK and Ireland, Dolmens can be found instead from the Baltic and North Seas to Portugal and in Korea, Israel, Syria and Jordan; all dating back to the Middle Neolithic age.

click here to view a large series of incredible images of Monoliths by Dieter

For Dieter Kik, taking images of the megaliths is an addiction, which started 50 years ago, when he was a the beginning of his career, after the education at WMF. Later on, with the wish to exhibit his works at the Le Quartier , the photographer learnt taking Quicktime panoramic with his E995 and the simple montage in PS7. With no walls as reference, he found stitching problematic with cylinder and spherical projection, 18 mm lens and 38 images which had to find a place in the...patchwork.

Dieter's capabilities are the result of years of practice, during which he learnt to watch and view things very carefully, before pressing the button. Moreover, he masters lights greatly and his competences awarded him with works for Michelin tyres' catalogs.

Dieter Kik maintains a great controls of lights even when panoramizing megaliths, with the use of more than 20 different flashes (among which 3 Nikons) and additional sensors. Always in search of his own solution and his unique style, Dieter often cracks the tools, because photography is a challenge and a reward.

Dieter Kik, 274 route de Benodet, F-29000 Quimper, tel(33) 02 98 90 13 53