SAMUEL BOURNE (1834–1912)
Bhagirathi II (6,512 m - 21,365 ft)
Bhagirathi III 6,454 m -21,175 ft)
Bhagirathi I (6,856 m- 22,493 ft)
India
In Gangotri Glacier and the Bhagirathi Peaks, gelatine on glass, 1866, The British Libray
About the photo
'Samuel Bourne, the bank clerk and amateur photographer, arrived in India in 1863 during the early years of commercial photography. Photographs taken during three expeditions to Kashmir and the Himalayas between 1863 and 1866 demonstrate his ability to combine technical skill and artistic vision. These views display a compositional elegance which appealed to Victorian notions of the ‘picturesque’; strategically framed landscapes of rugged mountain scenery, forests, rivers, lakes and rural dwellings.
Copies of this spectacular and very early photograph of the Himalayas by pioneer photographer Samuel Bourne are held in the collections of the Fogg Museum, Harvard University (2.2002.112), Duke University Library (as part of RL.00130), and the British Library (94/4 25).
The photographer
Samuel Bourne was a British photographer known for his prolific seven years' work in India, from 1863 to 1870. Together with Charles Shepherd, he set up Bourne & Shepherd first in Shimla in 1863 and later in Kolkata (Calcutta). The company closed only two years ago, in June 2016 !
Bourne spent six extremely productive years in India, and by the time he returned to England in January 1871, he had made approximately 2,200 fine images of the landscape and architecture of India and the Himalayas. Working primarily with a 10x12 inch plate camera, and using the complicated and laborious Wet Plate Collodion process, the impressive body of work he produced was always of superb technical quality and often of artistic brilliance. His ability to create superb photographs whilst travelling in the remotest areas of the Himalayas and working under the most exacting physical conditions, places him firmly amongst the very finest of nineteenth century travel photographers.
On 29 July 1863, he left Simla on the first of his three major Himalayan photographic expeditions. With a retinue of some 30 porters to carry his equipment, he travelled across the Simla Hills to Chini, in the Valley of the Sutlej River, 160 miles north-east of Simla, and spent some time photographing in the Chini-Sutlej River area, before heading up to the borders of Spiti, and returning to Simla on 12 October 1863, with 147 fine negatives.
In 1867, Bourne journeyed on up to the Gangotri Glacier (see photo above). There he went on to photograph one of the prime sources of the Ganges, as it issued from the mouth of the glacial ice cave at Gaumukh. His return journey took in Agra, Mussoorie, Roorkee, Meerut and Naini Tal, and he arrived back in Simla, again in time for Christmas! He wrote extensively about his travels in the Himalayas (one of the very few photographers in India to do so), in a long series of letters, which appeared in The British Journal of Photography, between 1863 and 1870.
The mountains
Bhagirathi I ( 6,856 - 22,493 ft), Bhagirathi II (6,512 - 21,365 ft), Bhagirathi III (6,454 m-21,175 ft), are peaks with moderate routes on the back sides, but huge steep-to-overhanging cliffs on the side facing the glacier. Bhagirathi III, in particular, has seen some of the most extreme rock climbing in the Himalaya. They are part of The Gangotri Group of mountains, a subdivision of the Garhwal Himalaya in the northern Indian state of Uttarakhand. It rings the Gangotri Glacier, and contains peaks that are notable either for their religious significance to Hindus, for their difficult climbing routes, or both. Climbs on three of the peaks (Thalay Sagar, Shivling, and Meru) have resulted in the awarding of the prestigious (but controversial) climbing award, the Piolet d'Or.
Notable mountains include:
- Chaukhamba (I-IV). A four-summitted massif; Chaukhamba I (7,138 m -23,419 ft), is the highest peak in the group.
- Kedarnath (6,940 m -22,769 ft), the highest peak on the southwest side of the glacier
- Thalay Sagar ( 6,904 m -22,651 ft), a steep rock spire, and perhaps the most difficult summit to attain in the entire group.
- Shivling (6,543 m -21,467 ft), another steep rock peak, with two summits, and the most striking as viewed from Gaumukh, the pilgrimage site at the mouth of the glacier. A symbol of the god Shiva, it is the most revered peak in the group.- Meru (6,660 m -21,850 ft), lies between Thalay Sagar and Shivling, and has some highly challenging routes, only recently ascended despite multiple attempts by the world's best climbers.
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2018 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau
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