I don't feel like this image was ever quite what I hoped it would be, which is why I have never posted it here. It's one of those shots where the moment I first laid eyes upon the place I knew I must capture it somehow, but that capture invariably pales in comparison to the experience. I hiked 500 meters of vertical elevation gain at an elevation of over 5000 meters above sea level three times just at sunset and sunrise just to get up here, in addition to full days of hiking elsewhere around the region. This waterfall, leaping out from the cliffs, roaring down below the hanging glacier above at my back, it seemed to point the way toward the towers of Makalu, the world's 5th highest peak. I planned every detail of the shot and thought it was one of the most unique places I've ever seen. I think the thing I struggle with was with conveying something like the magnitude of this place in the image. I almost thought it should be self-evident with a huge waterfall and peaks like these but it wasn't. The image looks almost too tame, too park-like for the remoteness and incredible efforts it required to reach. It was beautiful, no doubt. And of course I made many other images that did certainly capture the drama, the scale and the power of this place. So why not a little beauty here, right? This is 6 vertical images stitched. 1/3 second at ISO 100, f/9, 5-stop ND. About 20-25 hours in Photoshop. I posted this extra high res this time so you can observe the multitude of details in the background landscape.
