Porters on the Baltoro Glacier, Karakoram Himalayas, Pakistan
Sometimes when you’re out taking pictures, it’s easy to become so absorbed in your subject matter that you forget to look around you. This is especially true when you’re in an exotic location, or when you’re in the middle of shooting some really cool subject.
For example I was trekking up the Baltoro Glacier in the Karakoram Himalayas of Pakistan with a mountaineering expedition. One of the longest and most massive glaciers on the planet, the Baltoro is essentially a thousand foot thick slab of ice that’s covered in rock that it pulls down from the mountains as it slowly carves its way down the valley. To say the least, it’s an impressive landscape.
One afternoon, I found myself attracted to the scene above. We had stopped for the day and the native Balti porters were hunkering down to rest and relax after a long day of carrying loads up the glacier. It had just rained, and so everything was a little bit wet from the storm. The clouds were clearing, which gave us an impressive view of the Trango Towers and the other mile-high granite spires that we’d hiked past earlier in the day.
I grabbed my camera and loaded up a fresh roll of Kodak Ektachrome Lumiere 100, (during that trip, I was trying out the new Kodak slide film and comparing it to my regular film of the day, Fuji Velvia 50). I began shooting the scene, trying out different lenses and compositions and moving around as I tried to capture the beauty and power of the scene. Shooting into the low sun, I framed the porters in front of the towers off in the distance and exposed to maximize my contrast between the sun, clouds and foreground.
Highly motivated by my scene, I snapped frame after frame, hoping to get a one-of-a-kind shot that would illustrate the majesty of what was going on in front of me.
That’s when I heard the gasps of excitement from some of the other expedition members. At first, nothing registered out of the ordinary, because I figured that they were just looking at the same thing I was seeing. However, I quickly realized that this was not the case. Apparently, something rather exciting was going on behind me.
I broke away from my scene, spun around to see…this.
Rainbow over the Baltoro Glacier, Karakoram Himalayas, Pakistan
The truth of the matter is that if nobody had been around to alert me to what was going on behind me, the rainbow might have come and gone without me even knowing. I was so engrossed in trying to capture my immediate subject that I almost missed it. I’m glad I didn’t, because, aside from being an incredible thing to witness in one of the most majestic places on the planet, this image has turned out to be one of my biggest selling fine art prints.
The lesson here is simle: Don’t forget to look the other way. Even when you think you’ve got a great subject, stay alert to the rest of the world around you.
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Dan Bailey is a professional adventure, outdoor and travel photographer based in Anchorage, Alaska. Follow his own blog at danbaileyphoto.com/blog and see his daily updates at facebook.com/danbaileyphoto.
