The shadow of the mountains loom as my hike to Everest Base Camp continues from Dingboche (4,410m) to Lobuche (4,940m).
When asked why he wanted to climb Mount Everest, British climber George Mallory famously said, “Because it’s there”. My call to the mountains was much less ambitious, but no less important to me.
I was doing it for the lady pictured here, my then-girlfriend who would go on to to become my wife. She was much more adventurous and fitter than me, hence the majority of my photos were of her backview.
She was framed perfectly by the gap in the rock fence, and the fog obscured the other climbers ahead of her just enough to make her appear as the only person there, while her unmistakable red bucket hat popped out against the snowy and foggy background. Unfortunately the mountains were also obscured by the fog, but no high-altitude trip to the mountains is complete without life-threatening low visibility fog.
Captured on a Canon 5DMk3 with my 16-35mm f2.8 lens.
This is a superlative image, not only because of the photo itself, but because of the context of where it was taken and the adventure behind the image. The image, with the fog/clouds captured the way you captured them, fills me with a sense of mysterious wonder as I consider what may lie ahead for the lone human subject, small in the frame.
Thank you for your comment Tom!
I really appreciate your insight and I am glad that you can connect with the image the way you did. You definitely expressed and verbalised the emotions behind the image a lot better than I did.
To answer your question, more pain and suffering was what laid ahead for the lone human subject!