The photograph I’ve yet to earn
A Journey of trekking, photography, and personal reflection
Travel photographer Erin Sullivan in her TED Talk - Does photographing a moment steal the experience from you? opens with the question - “What is the most beautiful place you’ve ever been?” I could only think of one, and it took me a hearty five-day trek to get to it.
From trekking trails to unmade frames
During the break after my board exams, I embarked on my first trek and began exploring photography as a hobby. I enjoyed it so much that those two have always gone hand-in-hand for me since. Hardly would you ever find me without packing my camera in my rucksack.
The parallel I’ve found between trekking and photography is that you’ve got to earn that view from the summit just like you yearn to make that one unforgettable photograph.
Practising photography has taught me to be vulnerable with myself if not with anyone else. What I learned in this experience about my relationship with practising photography, was beyond the lens; it was about my spiritual and emotional motivations to make photographs. My only regret in writing an account of it today is not having written it sooner when it was still afresh in my memory. But in the interest of being better late than never, here it goes from trekking trails to unmade frames.
Point zero to the summit
A few years ago, I trekked the Dzongri La Pass and saw what became the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen, experienced and cried watching.
As rewarding as it was what I saw from the summit, the climb through the steep and winding stretches was nothing short of wholesome, from the base camp in Yuksom up to the Dzongri top; Our guides, the cooks, the entire support staff, the kind locals, and the dog that led us up — I carried all their warm, uplifting energy with me to the top.
Close to the base camp in Yuksom, I saw these children across the fence flashing the heartiest smiles for me!
They laughed, played, jumped over each other’s back, ran here and there and it was the happiest, warmest thing I witnessed. It felt so pure, so innocent. It felt like this is how childhood should be. My heart smiles each time I look at it. I hope yours will too :)
Have you ever seen something so breathtaking that it consumed you?
We did a short trek from the last base up to the summit and reached just in time for sunrise. One of my most rewarding experiences was watching the sun hang its golden rays on the Kanchenjunga peak, from the Dzongri top.
What lay miles ahead of me was so breathtaking, and what I could but only see to feel; I told myself that nobody and nothing was stopping me from photographing her, other than Mt. Kanchenjunga herself. Her effect on me was such, that I felt consumed and overwhelmed by her greatness.
It was pitch black when we started. If the dense sky was speckled with anything, I don’t recall. I was probably too focused on watching my next step, to look up. All I remember is that it soon grew into a crispy blue dawn. It was still blue when I reached the top. Blue like steel. And I was yet to be consumed.
I could see the Kanchenjunga adorned with silver snow like the magnificent beauty in sleep she was. As the blue grew lighter, I saw the silver snow turn golden. She had me so still, so awestruck, almost paralysed. She was within view but so far; stood elegantly tall, nothing obscuring her deep serenity. Much as I or anyone in my place, I’m certain, would have loved to have the view etched in memory, I don’t know why I couldn’t do the next best thing — take any photographs.
It’s a little difficult to explain how I felt then. Maybe I wanted to experience the feeling as it happened in the present, more than capture it in a frame. Maybe I felt the best I could do there was take photos, not make any. It was almost as if I didn’t feel worthy of making her a photograph; that I hadn’t earned the attempt to make her into one… Who was I to attempt doing that? It felt as if photographing her would mean disrespecting her. Or so I felt at the time. She was already everything synonymous with adjectives for beauty and magnificence, and more than what any of them could even begin to compliment. What more could I put into a frame that she wasn’t already?
Nature has a way of humbling us like no other. If there was any speckle in the sky that I missed that night, I felt a thousand times smaller in front of her, but only in the best, most overwhelming way I could. Recalling that moment today, I think- there are so many mountains that I’ve yet to trek! I shall keep scaling them with my camera tucked into my rucksack until I feel worthy of trying to capture her essence, her divinity; until I earn that photograph.
