CHASING THE MOUNTAIN LIGHT

Melbourne photographer David Neilson has engaged in a lifelong quest to photograph wild places and to seek the perfect light. This collection, chosen from his book Chasing the Mountain Light and grouped in no particular order, is just a small sample of the stunning images David has captured on his trips and adventures to the furthest corners of the planet.

By DAVID NEILSON

MY INITIAL INTEREST IN PHOTOGRAPHY grew out of my early rock climbing and mountaineering activities. From the very beginning, I was drawn to black and white photography, and it has remained my favourite medium. The stripping away of colour can reveal shape and form with significant and timeless clarity. Many snow and ice scenes look their finest in black and white.

I stopped climbing in my late thirties, but I retained my love of mountains and other wild places and similarly held onto my desire to photograph them to the best of my creative abilities.

Since the mid-1990s, I have used a large-format camera. This has provided exceptional image quality, but it takes more time to set up and use, and shortage of time is often a problem. In remote areas, particularly in Antarctica, one is often dependent on other people for transport, and the windows of opportunity for photographing can be brief. In addition to this, my natural working rhythm is quite slow. My solution to these challenges has been to take, as quickly as I can, a wide range of photos, and several of each at different exposures. This in turn places greater emphasis on the subsequent pictorial editing.

With much of my photography, I have wanted to use it to tell a story. My first serious photographic project aimed to portray the beauty of the Lake Pedder area in Southwest Tasmania in the hope that it might help stop the lake being flooded. With my last major project, I wanted to illustrate the grandeur of Antarctica and its wildlife in the face of significant environmental threats.

IMAGES - CLOCKWISE FROM TOP

Onboard the yacht Eloisa in 1977 exploring Hyatt Sound at the western end of the Cordillera Darwin in Tierra del Fuego. I was a member of a Scottish mountaineering expedition, and we eventually climbed several of the peaks just visible at the head of the glacier Federation Peak, in left of the image, is the most dramatic mountain in Southwest Tasmania. It was the scene for some of my early rock climbing adventures, including making the first ascent of Blade Ridge, which is just visible in the shadows on the right side of the peak

In 2016, with a group of five friends, we travelled from La Paz in Bolivia south across the Altiplano looking for salt lakes and flamingos. Eventually we reached the vast Salar de Uyuni shown here. It is 130km across, and is the largest salt flat on the planet

Climbers returning to the Aiguille du Midi, with Grandes Jorasses (top left) and Arêtes de Rochefort (top centre and right), French Alps. The left side of the Grandes Jorasses in shadow is the north face, one of the six great north faces of the European Alps

This king penguin colony is at Salisbury Plain on the island of South Georgia. Photographing wildlife with a large format camera is a challenge because the ‘decisive moment’ is a drawn-out ¼- or ½-second, and with my equipment I could only take six images before I had to change the film. You have to anticipate what the penguins might do, and work as quickly as the camera will allow

Wandering albatross on nest, Prion Island, South Georgia Great Trango Tower with summit just visible. Taken from Urdukas camp above the Baltoro Glacier, Pakistan

IMAGES - CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT

Elephant seals, Ocean Harbour, South Georgia

Andean condor above Lago Grey, Torres del Paine, Chile

The 23m motor-yacht Australis travelling north across Flandres Bay with peaks of Danco Coast beyond, Antarctic Peninsula. Between 2002 and 2008, we chartered skipper and yacht-owner Roger Wallis to take us on three expeditions to the Antarctic Peninsula and South Georgia

David Griffith took this photo of me photographing the king penguin colony at Salisbury Plain shown on the previous page

The southern faces of K2, from the junction of the Baltoro and Godwin-Austen Glaciers. The summit is 3,500m above the foreground glacier. The right skyline ridge is the Abruzzi Spur. Much that is written about K2 is to do with how difficult a peak it is to climb; I was not prepared for what an impressive and beautiful mountain it is. Within its realm it has no peer

CONTRIBUTOR: David Neilson is a Melbourne-based photographer and has been the author of five books, with his most recent being Chasing the Mountain Light. He has received two Antarctic Arts Fellowships, and in 2021 was one of four Antarctic Arts Fellows to be featured on a set of Australia Post stamps.