Chasing the mountain light : a life photographing wild places / David Neilson

Australian photographer David Neilson's life-long quest, chasing after the perfect mountain light, has resulted in this outstanding collection of 150 large-format landscape and wildlife images. All the photos are in black & white and reproduced using high quality double-black duotone printing.Much of Neilson's early photography was undertaken on mountaineering and exploring trips and he was for many years an active rock climber. An additional forty photos illustrate these activities. Patagonia and Antarctica are major themes in the book and several of Neilson's journeys to these places were by long sea voyages, including sailing on a yacht from Edinburgh to the Strait of Magellan. The yacht enabled him to photograph and climb in remote parts of Tierra del Fuego and allowed access to the start of his crossing of the Southern Patagonian Ice-cap. Later he sailed three times from Ushuaia in southern Argentina to photograph the Antarctic Peninsula and South Georgia in the South Atlantic. He also spent two summers photographing in East Antarctica.The photographs are accompanied by a text that begins with his childhood adventures. These were the catalyst for his evolving love of wild places and mountains and led to early walking and rock climbing in South West Tasmania, and later, mountaineering, and photographing in distant parts of the earth. Also described is his interest in using photography to help with the conservation of the natural environment. The last chapter contains photos of some of the most dramatic mountains on the planet focusing on K2, the second-highest peak in the world. Neilson accessed these mountains, which are situated in the Karakoram range in far north-east Pakistan, by a journey starting in Askole and trekking up the Baltoro and Godwin-Austen glaciers to the K2 base camp.Areas covered include: South West Tasmania, Alpine New Zealand, Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego, Wilsons Promontory, Australian Alps, South Georgia, Antarctic Peninsula, East Antarctica and Ross Sea, European Alps, Central Andes and Karakoram. Five specially drawn maps give a geographic context for many of the photographs.