Photographs of India

297 x 234 mm. One of Bourne's most famous photographs, taken at the top of the pass and looking down over the snow covered slopes below, with a line of porters struggling up the hill with their loads. The Spiti River can be seen in the valley in the far distance. For many years this picture held the record as the highest point at which a photograph had successfully been taken. Bourne, himself riding a yak, set off with his retinue of eighty porters from the village of Mani and camped for the night at an elevation of 17,000 feet on the glacier at the foot of the pass. The following day the weather was poor, but on the day after travel was possible, 'and before six we were on the move, and at half-past eight I stood on the crest of the Manining Pass, at an elevation of 18,600 feet above the sea But how shall I describe such a situation, or convey to the reader any idea of the wondrous extent of view which spread around me? From my very feet rose the Manining Peak, 3,000 feet still higher, forming the northern boundary to the pass. Across the glacier on the opposite side was a somewhat lower range, presenting a singular contorted structure in those parts not covered with snow. Looking towards the east and south, a mighty succession of snowy ranges stretches beyond the limit of vision into the vast unexplored regions of Tibet the Spiti river gleamed like a thread of silver through the now hazy valley down which I had come the sun poured his still hot beams through the clear ether, and made the unsullied snow dazzling -and painful in its brightness'. A period of acute anxiety followed as Bourne, desperate to obtain a photograph before the weather broke, awaited the arrival of his equipment, 'Every minute seemed an hour as I waited the slow arrival of my boxes, and it was not till eleven o'clock that I could commence operations. I had just time to secure three negatives... The running about in the soft snow to get these pictures at such an elevation was a work of no small difficulty, on account of the rarefaction of the air. With the chemicals I had no trouble, the exposure (the subjects being largely composed of snow) was very short, not more than seven or eight seconds with a Grubb's C lens, fifteen inch focus, and smallest stop', (B.J.P., 28 January 1870, p. 39). Bourne no. 1468.

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