Original photo

• Mt Cook 3754m

In 2003 I was working on the South Island of NZ (New Zealand) as a mountaineering guide. In the photo above, two clients, a second guide and myself are descending the Hooker glacier on Mt Cook, the Highest mountain in NZ. For the past 19yrs I have pursued climbing in some form or another. This interest has taken me all over the world from Central Asia to Alaska, through Europe, and back to Australia and NZ. Wherever I travel I take at least one camera. I now have a collection of more than 6000 photos, mostly slides waiting to be digitized. I like this image because of the ethereal quality of the landscape, due mostly to the near white out conditions. A white out is where cloud descends and you lose definition in the snowy environment. Contrast and shadow are replaced by a sameness, up could be down and vice versa. The horizon is not apparent and the ground plane merges with the sky.