The absolute clarity of the portraits demonstrates this climber's mastery of his medium. The images here look bold and contemporary: pure gatherings of white (snow), black (jagged peaks and ledges blocking sun), and various greys (clouds, shadows, and crevices). Ansel Adams's preface which he wrote as an appreciation in 1939. Reverent essays by other Sella admirers who know enough to stand aside while the photographs earn their own silent appreciation.
Weighted with heavy, nineteenth-century camera equipment, Vittorio Sella climbed some of the world's most mysterious, perilous peaks and photographed them, many for the first time. His strikingly elegant photographs, which in Ansel Adams's words, 'revealed [the mountains] in all their sheer majesty,' offer groundbreaking scientific and documentary information as well. Climbers today still use Sella's pictures to map out routes and to better comprehend their challenges and the magnificence to come.
Through Sella's images, we can witness the grandeur of the world's greatest peaks; the Russian Caucasus, the Saint Elias Range in Alaska, Mount Ruwenzori in Africa, the Kanchenjunga in the Himalayas. His photographic documentation of these peaks had no precedents and has few, if any, equals.
Here is an incredible review from the Amazon.com website:
This is one of the key volumes in any collection of mountain photography books. Sella was one of the earliest and most accomplished practitioners of this difficult discipline and this Aperture monograph does full justice to the importance and beauty of his work. The book, measuring approximately 28x31 cm, has been handsomely and meticulously produced. The quality of the photo reproductions is very good, capturing the spirit of the originals. There is a very pleasing layout, with pictures alternatingly presented on white and grey backgrounds. Formats vary, with about 25 photos spilling over onto a second page. There are two large foldout panoramas: one taken from the summit of the Elbrus and the other one representing the Baltoro area in the Karakoram. As far as I can tell, the 3:4 aspect ratio of the original 30x40 and 18x24 plates has been respected.
The documentary value of Sella's images is undisputed. But Sella's images surely transcend the boundaries of a purely documentary kind of photography. Take one of the earliest images shown in the book, taken on the Aletsch Glacier in the Bernese Alps in 1884 (Sella was 25 then). It is not easy to reconstruct the standpoint of the photographer, but I suspect that he is looking towards the Lötschenlücke, with the the onset of the Sattelhorn ridge barely visible to the left and a sizable chunk of the Mittaghorn-Gletscherhorn chain in full view on the right hand side of the pass. It must be early morning as the light is slanting from the East, softened by a disperse cloud cover above the Mittaghorn.
A later example of a fascinating image is the picture on page 111, showing the Duke of Abruzzi and guides climbing the Chogolisa icefall in the Karakoram range. The diffuse colours, the halos around some of the ice towers and the brushed effect in the gloomy sky place the picture in the Pictorialist tradition (à la early Stieglitz or Steichen). Again, there is an oddity which makes the attentive observer pause. The first climber has taken a position on a small shoulder and is overlooking the terrain they have to tackle next.
The essays accompanying the pictures vary somewhat in quality. Individual chapters are ordered chronologically, reflecting Sella's progress as he worked through his major campaigns in the Alps, Caucasus, Yukon, Ruwenzori, Sikkim and Karakoram. Paul Kallmes' short introductory essays to the chapters are informative and well written, if only a little short. Wendy Watson's concluding essay 'Picturing the Sublime' is a disappointment.
The book ends with a notes section, a bibliography and a very good timeline. This is worth studying in detail as it includes some startling anecdotes. For instance, in December 1892 Sella traveled by train from Dover to London. During the journey he leaned too far out of the window, thereby striking his head on the tunnel wall. After spending two weeks in coma, he fully recovered from his skull fracture.
We also have to wait until the very final pages of the book to see two pictures of the man himself, both taken at very old age. One wonders how he looked like when as a young man of 25 he wandered through the Alps with his 30x40 camera.
Vittorio Sella [1859 - 1943]
He was the Italian alpinist and photographer who accompanied the 1906 Abruzzi Rwenzori expedition and who was perhaps the greatest of all alpine photographers. It was Sella who first recorded the landscape, plants and people of the Rwenzori in extensive and intimate detail, and to whom we refer for clarity of the historical record and pure artistic beauty. It is particularly interesting to note how far the glaciers of the Rwenzori have receded since these photographs were taken, nearly 90 years ago.
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