I first saw the towering mountains of the Nepal Himalaya from the lawns of the Crystal Hotel in Pokhara. It was December 1978 and, in the grey light of a chilly dawn, I attempted to take some photographs with my first and new SLR camera. The garden was full of red poinsettia blossoms but in the pre-dawn light they looked dark crimson, almost black. And then, behind them, in that half-light, there was the Fishtail mountain, Machhapuchhare, her razor-sharp ridges slicing the sky. Next to her were the Annapurnas, impossibly high, and to the far-west Dhaulagiri peeked over the shoulder of the lower hills. I have seen this Himalayan vision in different incarnations all through the years, and it never fails to arouse a feeling of awe and amazement each and every time.

The photographs I took that winter morning were extremely ordinary, and did not do justice to the sweeping spread of peaks from Pokhara Valley. But that moment was the beginning of a lifelong interest in mountain photography. The desire to create better, and even sublime, photographs of the Himalayas soon became a focal point of my existence, and remains so to this day.

Nepal Himalaya – A Journey Through Time captures two journeys — my journey as a photographer in Nepal for many years, and the journey of writer Lisa Choegyal, who came to the country in 1974 and made it her home.

Sujoy Das is a Kolkata-based photographer

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