Great environmental portrait in the Everest Himalaya of Nepal

NEPAL Khumbu Glacier — Dec 2005 — Pemba Sherpa – the porter for my December 2005/2006 Everest Base Camp Trek on the pass at the snout of the Khumbu Glacier in the Everest Himalaya of Nepal — Picture by Jonathan Mitchell/Atlas Photo Archive

I shot this environmental portrait with my trusty Voigtlander Bessa T and a 25mm f4 Skopar lens. Thanks to the subject, Pemba Sherpa, I managed to pull off a successful trek to strengthen a story on climate change in the Himalayas which I was shooting for Hollandse Hoogte Photo Agency.

Pemba is a great character of the Everest Himalaya of Nepal and I hope that this portrait does him some justice.

Everest mono project on the Sherpas being edited

NEPAL Kunde — An elderly Sherpa woman makes her way into the village of Khumjung from neighbouring Khumjung in the Everest Himalaya of Nepal — Picture by Jonathan Mitchell/Atlas Photo Archive

In the years 2005-2008, I spent quite a lot of time working in the Everest Himalaya of Nepal. Returning with a large portfolio of work on 10MP Nikon DSLR and also many on 35mm film and a couple of digital compacts.

I recently found some time to scan in many of the 35mm frames and have also been re-editing the digital captures as well. I hope to have finished this mammoth editing task in the coming months, mostly for a book project.

Tibetan Dropka nomads portrait in Namche Bazaar in the Everest region of Nepal

NEPAL Namche Bazaar — Oct 2007 — Tibetan Dropka traders from Ting Ri in Tibet at a market in Namche Bazaar in the Everest region of Nepal. These traders bring various goods over the Nangpa La pass from Chinese-controlled Tibet to sell to Nepalese Sherpas in Khumbu — Picture by Jonathan Mitchell/Atlas Photo Archive

This is one of my favourite portraits from my travels in the Khumbu Himalaya ( Everest region ) of Nepal. These Tibetan Dropka nomads bring cheap Chinese goods to sell to Sherpas over the Nangpa pass and sometimes establish temporary markets to sell their wares. Mostly, they come from the Tibetan village of Ting Ri in Chinese-occupied Tibet. Although a separate ethnic group from the Sherpas, they do share their religion and some customs. Perhaps less so with the Chinese controlling the frontier than when Tibet was an independent country, the Sherpas and the Dropka sometimes marry. The arduous journeys undertaken by these nomads make them the highest traders on Earth and the Dropka of Ting Ri have for around a century been the backbone of many a Himalayan mountaineering expedition, especially the British attempts on Mount Everest from Tibet before it was climbed by Tenzing Norgay and Sir Edmund Hillary in 1953. Notoriously light-fingered, these nomads are the biggest tinkers I’ve ever encountered and I would often see them during many of the treks I did in the spectacular Khumbu Himalaya of Nepal. The image above is part of a photo essay on the Sherpas I am in the process of re-editing.

You can now find this image and others from this blog plus many more from my stock archive on my new high res stock image database.