A reference to Vittorio Sella

I inserted a nickname I gave to our guide, without the story behind it. I think its worth hearing, so, pity the reader. It comes out of an email I sent out to my climbing friends, thereby, I had this impression everyone had seen it. Sorry. Time to bring the story up to speed.

The Duke of Abruzzi came into the Ruwenzori in 1906. The area had been observed. A couple of Europeans had walked into the mountains, but not far. They had not mapped the valleys, even. I know of 4 expeditions the Duke had masterminded: Mount Saint Elias, K2, The Ruwenzori and an Arctic attempt. I have been to the first three areas and have some very real opinions to the tenacity, strength, thoughtfulness and quality of the projects the guy took on. Each a magnificient trip. And well done to boot.

He brought a brilliant photographer on his trips, Vittorio Sella. For my money, Vittorio captures the loneliness, beauty, the bigness and the romance of these big peaks and the experience. He can stand next to any of the big boys: Ansel Adams, Bradford Washburn, etc.

On day two, while wallowing through some mud, I proclaimed my photography guideline. If you only take pictures of good weather, people think the trip was a celebration of good weather, good times, light loads, sitting around drinking good coffee every morning and laying around in the sun.

If I return to work at Utility Technologies International, a pipeline engineering consultant and contractor, could you imagine if the guys in the ditch (who I work with) saw only the sunny side of my trip? They would plant me in the mother of all mud holes, and leave for lunch. Just to preserve my dignity around the shop, I must photograph the hard times.

Capturing the hard times is the goal of the photography experience for me. I have rarely succeeded. Its a shoot from the hip; keep your eyes open when they are packed full of mud; be ever willing to ruin your camera for a shot- world. I see several visions of heart stirring shots a day, but ever so rarely, can I capture them. The perspective is challenging. I am usually busy. Most of the time, I'm tired. And, I just don't want to ruin my little point and shoot camera...

Within those shots, though is an unusual insight into the Human Spirit. Why do we go to battle for that next step upward, when for the same effort, we can take 100 downwards? Why do we increase the risk to our existence, when we could have stayed home and ben warm, safe and dry? Where does the energy come from to keep us moving farther? Why keep going deeper into the misty, cloud shrouded mountains in the distance, knowing any injury will turn our dreams into nightmare?

For all these reasons, my partner, in his deep wisdom could see the artistic aura around our guide, and handed him his camera for a few snaps of the mud.

Suddenly, this man was transformed. Every shot required three takes. Every species was recorded. Each beauty of the area had to be documented. The subtle gray on gray of the sky was realized. He was capturing images he hoped would help publicize his beloved mountains. In so doing, the world would come. The community would be able to afford to educate their children, buy medicine and hopefully improve their world slightly.

The net effect? We rarely saw our guide, or my partner's camera after he got his hands on it.

Hence, the reference to our guide, Vittorio.

In each day's review of the images shot, we realized the guy was taking some nice shots. It was humbling that this remote mountain area, our once-was-a-porter companion had a better grasp on the art of photography than myself after dangling one of the things around my neck for 35 years or so... A photographers images can hang on a wall and be scrutinized from close up and back at a distance. Some of my snaps can hold up to 8 seconds of investigation on a projections screen, with the distraction of a story and maybe music going on at the same time