Alfred Gregory's Everest by Alfred Gregory; read 27 November 2018

Released in 1993 to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the 1st ascent of Everest, this book has been in my loft for nearly 20 years. Gregory was the British mountaineer who, despite being an amateur was the official stills photographer on the 1953 British Mount Everest Expedition. Whilst none of the expedition members were what we might today recognize as professional mountaineers they were all at the top of the sport as it then was in the days before commercialisation changed everything. Secondary roles, such as movie and stills photographer were allocated based on willingness to undertake the task. For Gregory, who reached 28,000 ft in support of Hillary and Tenzing’s successful summit attempt, the expedition would provide a bridge into professional photography such was the quality of his work. In 1992, when this book was put together that was still his profession.

The book is foolscap format, 183 pages long and contains a short foreword by Jan Morris and an introductory chapter by Gregory followed by sectional photographic chapters (Approach, Base Camp etc) that show a world and Nepal before the modern world had intruded. Not only has man intruded but also climate change has also meant that the giant ice seracs at the Base camp (not the same as today’s Everest Base Camp) used by the expedition have also gone as the glacier has retreated.

The photos themselves are stunning when one considers how hard it must have been to provide sufficient contrast on black and white film against a world of snow, ice and rock without the aid of integrated light meters and camera sensors. Today a photographer can check instantly how well his photograph has turned out and take it again a thousand times. Gregory had no such luxury of feedback – he took the photo and then sent the negative away to be processed hundreds of miles away and had to wait to be told by returning mail whether he had got a good shot or not. Indeed, he was not to see most of his photos between the time he pressed the shutter and 1992 when putting this book together. That many have become classics is a huge tribute to his ability.

Gregory’s photos are still subject to copyright but many can be viewed here:

http://alfredgregoryphotographs.com/everest.html

Gregory died in 2010 at the age of 96.

Photo of the Western Cwm of Everest - Moving Mountains Trust [CC BY 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons