Colin Prior - Mountain Man The Adventure Show

The Karakoram Mountains of Pakistan,

one of the most rugged, remote

and inhospitable places in the world.

Despite its savage nature, this is a photographer's paradise

and one man is determined to capture its austere grandeur.

There's a unique landscape here, that continually inspires me.

These mountains that rise up, with their very fine-fluted towers,

with domes with shapes that appear to rise from a Tolkien novel.

Occasionally, in Scotland, you will find yourself in the Cuillins,

where you've got a bit of mist running over a pinnacle.

Here, in Pakistan, almost every mountain

has these spires and pinnacles, with mist running in and out of them,

and I feel there is great opportunity to create images

that really stimulate the imagination.

There are more mountains over 8,000 metres in the Karakoram

than anywhere else and they've attracted

the world's finest climbers for over a century.

But there are very few photographers who have been prepared to endure

the hardship and dangers that exist here.

It is awesome. I mean, awesome!

Thank you, Mustafa.

There is not another place in the world like this -

Just this obelisk of rock, that rises so vertically.

We've been rather fortuitous this afternoon,

because we were scheduled to go to Trango Base Camp,

but the glacier conditions are too dangerous

and we have come to a spot which is exactly where I wanted to be.

We've got a bit of cloud coming through today

and it's made a huge difference,

because instead of the blue sky, which we've seen almost

solely, for the full trip, so far, it has changed and I'm really delighted

we've got a bit of drama going on.

By any standard,

Colin Prior is one of the world's great landscape photographers.

For over 30 years, he has meticulously documented

Scotland's mountains and wild places.

Whether it is the wind-torn Atlantic beaches of Western Harris

or the serrated skyline of Skye's Cuillin Ridge,

he has matched a photographer's eye with the instincts of a mountaineer.

This image was photographed on the Summer Solstice

and it was a tremendously warm and bright day and,

as evening approached, a front came in from the east

and I thought that would be it over, but it passed very quickly

and you've got what looks almost like

a smoke-filled waiting room in a station. The effect was stunning.

Colin Prior has an instantly-recognisable style.

Where other people saw mountains rising up vertically,

paradoxically, he saw them in a different way -

horizontally.

Capturing vast, swooping panoramas,

his photographs were a complete revelation to most people.

For mountain-goers like me,

this was a new and inspirational way of seeing our wild places.

I just felt that the Scottish landscape

really lent itself to that wide format,

particularly, if you go up high, and that became a challenge.

And the first big picture that I ever took

that really awakened me to the potential of shooting

at dusk and dawn from elevated positions

was in Glen Etive, on the November 10, 1990.

Despite all the times that I've been in the Scottish mountains,

it remains, probably,

the single most amazing moment that I've witnessed in mountains.

Just the combination of the landscape

and the light that took place there that night.

I was on the summit of Ben Starav, looking down Glen Etive.

The sun had been held back all day by cirrus clouds - very frustrating -

and when we got to the summit, my father and I,

we realised that there was a big clear band of sky

between this cirrus cloud and the horizon,

through which the sun would need to drop and, eventually,

the sun did drop through that and it was like

a giant theatre lamp illuminating the landscape.

It came alive.

It just burst into colour, with the sun hitting it.

And that really became the catalyst for my quest to photograph

the rest of the Scottish landscape in that fashion.

What I'm trying to capture in my photographs is something

that doesn't really exist.

I go out to shoot something that is invisible

and I'm trying to fuse the landscape together with the most amazing light,

that turns a landscape from the ordinary into the extraordinary.

To non-photographers, taking landscape pictures

might appear easy. In fact, the opposite is true.

Long periods of time are spent waiting for that fleeting instant,

when the light is just right.

Colin Prior spends countless days and nights

out on the hills and has the patience and tenacity

to wait for exactly that moment.

It's that hunger, essentially, that drives you. It's that rat

in your stomach, which chews away at it from the inside

and pushes you up these mountains at the wee hours of the morning

or camping there overnight.

My whole philosophy about photography is getting it right in the camera.

You've got to put the legwork in. You have got to go out there

and there's no substitute of photographing a mountain

at dusk and dawn.

With dusk photographs it is sometimes a little easier,

because you can climb up on to a mountain,

linger on the summit until the sun drops and you've still, roughly,

got about 40 minutes of ambient light to get off.

With sunrise pictures, it's a little bit more complicated,

because you've got to go there and camp.

You're carrying, perhaps, 25 kilos up a mountain and,

each time I do that, I think I'm going to find a way

to reduce the weight on my back,

but I can't. I use everything in the rucksack -

my tent, my cooking equipment -

I eat all the food and, when I come back,

there's nothing that I can actually take out that rucksack,

much to my dismay.

But if you're prepared to do that, there is the potential

to shoot something that's absolutely magical.

Today, Colin spends much of his time passing on his knowledge to others.

This group have been exploring Inverpolly and Assynt

and the final day starts with an early trek up Stac Pollaidh,

hopefully to catch a spectacular dawn.

Well done, everybody. Great effort.

If you fancy going to the summit, you know, do it.

It's not the proper summit, but I find, up there,

that you lose this perspective on the foreground,

because you're too elevated.

'We've been to some fantastic places -

'beaches and rocks.'

And it's just great to see the countryside

from a different perspective. I've walked most of these places

that we've been, but to come and look at it

with Colin made quite a difference.

See, there's a bit of clipping

in the blue channel, You see that, just, and that's coming from the sky.

When I see a histogram like that it's always worrying, so you need to use

less exposure, so what shutter speed and aperture are you working at?

'I'm no expert, but just looking at his work,'

you can see the meticulous attention to detail.

I mean, this guy recces places, he plans,

he looks at what the weather is going to do,

he looks at what the tide is going to do. He does his homework.

He's got a wonderful eye. He sees things in the landscape that,

yes, if it's pointed out to you afterwards, you might see, as well.

You can look at his photos for hours and you see more and more

and he probably saw that before he pressed the shutter.

-Very impressive.

-They're not the sort of shots

that I could get by wandering off for a weekend or something.

Clearly, he has invested a lot of time and a lot of knowledge,

in terms of the location, the timing and all the rest of it,

to get the shots that he gets and I think...

Well, it seems a bit daft to say, but they are exceptional.

What we, as photographers,

are attempting to do is to take the three-dimensional world

in which we live and transform that into the two-dimensional world

of photography. And we know that it's very, very different.

And the key to becoming an authoritative photographer

is understanding the differences between these two states.

Coming on a course like this, you learn so much, so much.

It's as much about the locations that Colin is bringing us to

and his knowledge about the places

that has been amazing, really, cos anyone can go to a beach

or a street market and take photos,

but you can't come here unless you're with somebody

that really knows what they're talking about and doing.

Although Colin Prior has established himself as a mountain photographer,

his first pictures were taken not in the hills,

but in the depths of the ocean.

I won Best Newcomer to Underwater Photography and that really gave me

the confidence to go out and become a photographer.

But that early success wasn't something you might have predicted.

At school, I was very much an average performer and,

in some subjects, a below-average performer.

I was never very good at anything and, when I discovered photography,

I realised that I had something special, that I had something unique,

and I decided that I would try to be

the very best photographer in my own field.

'Anybody can pick up a camera, point it and shoot

'and, if you shoot often enough, you'll get some good pictures,'

but some of the stuff that he does and then he can explain to you

what he's doing and why he was doing it.

It just turns out absolutely fabulous.

I could never, ever hope to reproduce anything like that myself,

even if he was standing over my shoulder telling me what to do.

Pakistan - June, 2013,

and the start of the biggest challenge of Colin's career.

He is planning to spend the next five years or so

meticulously documenting the mountains and valleys

that form the spectacular Karakoram.

From the capital, Islamabad, it's a two-day journey north.

up the notoriously-dangerous Karakoram Highway.

It's a distance of over 450 miles,

to where the final road ends, in the frontier village of Askole.

The Karakoram is not a place you would visit by accident.

Simply getting here is an adventure in itself -

and that is part of the attraction.

The landscape was quite breathtaking. Villages which are, essentially,

oases, that sit on this high-altitude desert,

because that's often what people don't understand about this region.

It's a desert, with these amazing mountains that grow out the stones

in the Baltoro, but there's very, very little rainfall here.

We went through some very arid country

and these villages use irrigation very effectively

and they're just these green oases of civilisation,

within an otherwise-barren landscape.

If you want to photograph the mountains,

you've just got to make the journey and travel the distance.

You've got to put up with living on the trail for 40 days,

in order to get access to these mountains.

It does take a little bit longer than a run up to Knoydart.

In Scotland, Colin works by himself, but to photograph in the Karakoram,

he needs a lot of support.

There are porters, kitchen staff

and a specialist crew for Colin and the film team.

Over 50 people in total, under the leadership of two

Karakoram veterans - cook and deputy sirdar, Ali,

and chief sirdar, Karim.

Without their help, this journey wouldn't be possible.

In essence, this is a full-scale mountaineering expedition.

Already, they're at 3,000 metres, where the effects

of altitude are clearly felt.

Ahead, lies a six-week journey, that will take them to nearly

5,000 metres, into the very heart of the Karakoram.

I can't quite work in the same way as I've done in Scotland,

where I recce mountain ranges, or specific mountains,

and then work out the best time of the year to photograph them.

With this trip, I need to be a little bit more responsive

and take what's given to me, essentially.

From Askole, Colin will travel up the Baltoro Glacier,

staying in a series of camps along the way.

As he treks east, he wants to produce a definitive

photographic record of these great mountains.

The plan is to reach Concordia and Chogolisa, in the Upper Baltoro.

It's a risky enterprise.

Pakistan has the reputation

of being one of the world's least-stable countries.

The expedition has needed special permission to travel

throughout this region - the first film crew allowed into this

highly-sensitive area for years.

Many people have asked

why I'm working in Pakistan, because of the security issues there,

but the landscape is so unique that I need to go and do this project

and, in many ways,

the security problem that exists is actually responsible for

very few people going there, including photographers.

If the Karakoram Mountains were anywhere else in the world,

there would probably be about a million people going through them,

something on the scale of Yosemite, because they have that grandeur.

But because it is Pakistan and because of the situation

that exists there, very little has been done.

I think there have been two books, photographic books, done in Pakistan.

One in the '70s by Galen Rowell, and the other in the mid-'80s

by Chiro Siro Hata, a Japanese photographer.

I'd like to create a body of work before the inevitable

commercialisation of the Karakoram Mountains begins.

The trek initially follows the course of the Braldu River.

The ground here is constantly changing. Rock falls are common.

Loose scree dominates. There are few places to make camp.

It's been a long first day

and that is followed by a 4.00am start next morning.

Colin wants to exploit every opportunity

and is determined to catch the first light.

He originally came here in 1996

and he has been obsessed with the Karakoram ever since.

One of the most important aspects of photographing mountains

is research and that is done simply by being there and having

probably failed to get an image the first time.

But it just makes you a little bit more determined

to get the picture right the next time.

I think the sun will hit that peak in the next ten to 15 minutes.

There's not much in the way of drama up there. There's no cloud.

It's a clear sky, so it's not quite what I'd

wished for but we should get a result from it.

When you're there the first time,

you're able to work out where you want to be and, more importantly,

when you want to be there.

And that's not just at dusk or at dawn,

but at what time of the year you need to be there and that,

ultimately, will be dictated by the position of the sun in the sky.

I am expecting the light to come up any minute,

but there's no doubt that it's being held back

by a slightly bigger mountain, because the surrounding mountains

are already being illuminated by this light,

so we just need this light to come down the mountain a bit.

Knowing there's a long day's trek ahead,

the porters are already starting to move camp.

But in the hope of catching a powerful image,

Colin has decided to stay put a bit longer.

That's the light just piercing the very summit, at the moment,

so within the next five or ten minutes,

it will begin to illuminate that tower there.

Fantastic just to watch and witness this.

Today, waiting for the light has been a frustrating experience.

As often, with this kind of photography,

the sunrise didn't quite materialise.

In Scotland, this would be a mere irritation.

In Pakistan, for someone who is a perfectionist,

-it's a significant set back.

-I'm really quite disappointed

by the combination of the light and the landscape.

The snow is a little bit patchy.

By the time the light caught the peak,

it had, sort of, cleaned up.

Instead of it being pink, or even that yellowness

that you get in the light, it is actually white light

that's up there and there's not enough

modelling in this. It is still a very one-dimensional landscape.

You can never tell if you're going to be successful in the morning

or in the evening. You've just got to get up and try.

You might think

you've got a great photograph, but until you actually see

the combination of light on the landscape,

you just don't know. And I'm afraid, this morning,

it's just been a bit of an anti-climax.

What I'm really looking for with these mountain photographs

is to use these fine shapes and graphics, but to match them with

the very finest light that I can find, so you've got this fusion

of landscape and light. And, sometimes, you'll find it,

most often, you won't. But when you do, it's a fantastic feeling.

You know you've captured a unique moment that will never repeat itself.

Compared with the popular region of Everest,

relatively few people come to the Karakoram.

Even today, information and maps are hard to come by.

To fully understand this area,

you also need to know its history and, in Colin's case,

its photographic history.

So, his expedition began with a visit to Chris Bartell,

a specialist antiquarian bookseller in Pitlochry.

The piece de resistance

I've got to show you is this book here,

which is a huge volume. There are actually two volumes.

This is the first volume,

cos this was published in 1912, and this is the Duke of Abruzzi's

expedition in 1909.

And on the expedition was the photographer, Vittorio Sella,

who had a fantastic reputation and this book superbly illustrates it.

His photography is just remarkable, it really is, and the photographs

taken in this book were shot with a camera that he had made in London,

in mahogany, by a company called Dallmeyer,

and the negatives were 11 by 14 inches in size, glass negatives,

which were then processed on the glacier.

What I find absolutely amazing is the fact that they still

had to get these glass negatives down the Baltoro Glacier.

All it would have taken would have been the slip of a Balti's foot

-and that image would have become oblivion.

-This is volume two, Colin -

maps and panoramas from the expedition.

And this is what is really special, some huge pull-out panoramas.

These are fantastic. These are Vittorio's original panoramas.

-101 years old.

-Just fantastic to see these original photographs.

This actually shows where the panoramas were taken from.

It's really quite a detailed map.

-The actual locations that Vittorio took these photographs from?

-Yeah.

-These are all marked here. You can see where...

-That's fantastic.

..exactly where the photographs were taken.

That'll give me an exact positioning for some of those photographs,

because there are one or two that I hope to replicate,

because what I think we'll see is quite a big change in the condition

that the glacier is in now.

You see all the major peaks. K2, of course, at the top here.

Gasherbrum, another one of the 8,000-metre peaks.

You've got Hidden Peak and, down here, we've got Masherbrum.

Let's look at one of the panoramas, Colin.

Here's one looking directly at K2.

This is from the Godwin-Austen Glacier.

Just tremendous. You can see that, sort of,

-pyramidal.

-The classic, sort of, image we see of K2, isn't it?

Perhaps one of the most impressive amongst them all is this one.

This is one of my favourites - looking towards Concordia,

from somewhere, I think, high in Golden Throne.

I think this panorama is a very, very good visual summary

-of the Baltoro Glacier.

-It gives you some idea of the height, doesn't it?

You've got the people in the foreground. That's quite special.

These are wonderful to see, they really are.

And what a place the world would have been, just back then,

just over 100 years ago.

If there's one image of Sella's that Colin is keen to replicate,

it's the view looking back down the Baltoro Glacier.

But it won't be easy.

The glacier has changed enormously in the intervening century

and it's not entirely clear where the Italian photographer

placed his tripod.

And things have changed in other ways, too.

Sella was part of the Duke of Abruzzi's

abortive attempt to climb K2.

The Duke didn't reach the summit, but did set a new altitude record.

His team had the luxury of being here for six months.

Colin has just six weeks.

The two expeditions couldn't be more different.

He landed in Bombay with six tons of equipment,

which was all transported from Bombay to Rawalpindi,

largely on animals and, after that, on the backs of men.

It was run very much like a military campaign and very successfully.

And the Duke, because of his resources, had artisans

that helped create the equipment they needed here,

because much of the equipment was new and had to be evolved.

The group had sleeping bags which were made in modular systems -

one was camel hair, there was a second eiderdown layer and, then,

there was a goatskin covered with canvas, which waterproofed that.

These bags could be used individually, which would suit

the different climates between Bombay and the Karakoram,

or they could be used together, when the temperatures were cold.

The team are now heading for camp at Paiyu.

Already, they are at 3,500 metres and will stay here for one night.

Even so, the whole camp needs to be established on a cramped

site of rocky terrain above the valley floor.

As always on trek, there are plenty of running repairs to do.

INDISTINCT SPEECH

The next morning, everyone begins the journey northwest

up a subsidiary glacier.

We're heading towards the Uli Biaho,

a higher camp which should give outstanding views of one

of the most famous set of peaks in the Karakoram, Trango Towers.

HE SPEAKS NATIVE LANGUAGE

Colin plans to stay here for a few days, hoping for the opportunity

to photograph this place at its most dramatic.

The big iconic pictures still drive me

and they're really crucial to this project.

I've really got to get images that transcend what trekkers

can shoot on a trip like this.

The challenge I have with this project is how to vary these

shots with other types of images that essentially will change the pace.

Just coming in a bit closer.

Thank you. Thank you very much.

I'll come and show you the photo on the computer. Two minutes.

'If there are too many big shots, it means that you become bored,

'visually bored by the similarity of the images within this landscape.'

Very handsome. Very handsome.

'We're all bombarded on a daily basis by millions of images

'and photographers are able to distil these images from that chaos

'by using the juxtaposition of colours, of graphics,

'of distilling the lines within the landscape so that they can

'create an image that the eye can navigate, and this is crucial.'

OK, that looks good.

I just need... Excuse me. Just...

That's it.

OK, see where my hand is, just look at my hand.

Good, thank you very much. Come and see.

There is no shortage of images in these mountains,

whether it is the big landscape or portraits of the team.

But between the photographic sessions, Colin is keen to find

more details about Vittorio Sella's key image from 1909.

Although Sella left detailed notes, the exact location of

where he took this particular photograph isn't clear.

Today, the Baltoro looks very different.

Colin asks Ali and Karim to help him.

For me, this is a visual summary of the Karakoram.

You've got the Muztagh Tower.

K2. And this is Gasherbrum IV, I think.

We've got Concordia in here, the Baltoro. And Vittorio,

he put these porters in, he put them in in the darkroom, he put them in

after he took the photograph.

And I think the reason that he's added these figures into

his photograph is because photography in 1909 was such a new medium.

And because the figures are in, it gives an impression of scale

so people could look at them and think,

look at how huge these mountains are.

Look how impressive they are.

-We're arriving at the Concordia.

-OK.

-The other group rest there.

Me and you, we will go in together,

-maybe two hours walking, and then we will show you.

-OK.

And so we can find this photograph.

Here it's gone.

There's been great recall upon the expertise and experience

that we've got in this room.

And I think we've clearly identified where we need to be to replicate

the images that Sella took in 1909.

So, I'm really excited and looking forward to the challenge.

Before leaving Uli Biaho, Colin needs to capture

a key image of the Trango Towers.

Although its main summit is over 2,000 metres lower than

the highest mountain in the region, K2,

its cliffs are some of the tallest in the world.

We're waiting for just a little bit of drama here.

I was up here this morning for the dawn but, as I expected,

there was slightly too much shadow and now we've fantastic clarity

but it's a little one dimensional.

I'm hoping that the cumulus will build up over the snow fields

and start to give us some white puffy clouds behind the towers there.

And that's going to give us a much, much better picture.

It's currently about 10 o'clock.

I think if I hang around here until probably 1.00 or 2.00,

I'll get the result I want.

And it's really not that bad a place to hang around in.

Now Colin continues his journey up the Baltoro Glacier,

moving over a landscape of loose rock and ice.

But the rewards are immense

as he makes his way to the next camp, Urdukas.

At over 4,000 metres,

the camp looks out to some of the great sites of the Karakoram.

But the tone of the whole expedition is about to change.

Other trekkers at the camp site have shocking news.

In the nearby Nanga Parbat region, 11 people have been

killed in an attack by a previously unknown terrorist group.

We just learned about the atrocity that took place

at Nanga Parbat base camp, which we were in complete ignorance of.

Absolutely devastated to hear the news

and my thoughts are with the families of the climbers

and the Pakistanis who lost their lives during that atrocity.

We've also learned from our sirdar that the cook on

that particular trip on to the Diamir Face at Nanga Parbat

is actually from his village.

He leaves behind a wife and children who have no means of support,

so it's not just been an attack against Westerners,

it's also been an attack against Pakistani nationals.

Whilst everyone is appalled by the loss of life,

there are also major consequences for the local people

who make up the support team.

In the ten days since the attack, many governments have

advised against any travel to Pakistan.

The porters here will have very little work because most of

the travel companies have cancelled their trekking parties this year.

Already, many of the porters have lost their complete income

and, without that money, the existence of many of the porters

for the rest of the year is going to be very frugal.

These attacks don't just affect global security but they do really

affect the livelihoods of the people that live on the ground in Pakistan.

The Pakistan Government is concerned for everyone's safety

and the team discuss what to do next.

This part of the country is politically stable and the local

people are proud of their reputation for protecting foreigners.

With that knowledge,

Colin decides to stay on and continue with his work.

Next morning, he is up early.

Not only to take more photographs but also to try and solve the riddle

of where Vittorio Sella took his famous picture all those years ago.

But now Colin realises that the landscape

he is looking at has altered even more dramatically than he expected.

I think what's happened is that climate change has affected

the weather here. The glaciers are most definitely smaller.

Even I can see the differences since 2004.

The weather patterns aren't as stable as they were,

I think, when Vittorio was coming.

Many of his images are very, very clear and snowy too.

So I think he experienced a very different type of landscape

and climatic conditions at that time.

Technology has moved on and there is no point in trying to replicate

his large format images, which were glass negatives.

I'm working with the latest digital cameras

and this little unit here is a GPS receiver.

In the Exif data, it is giving me the co-ordinates and the altitude

that I'm shooting from.

The technology does not help with the light.

I'm confronted with exactly the same problems as every other

photographer is shooting landscape. It either happens or it doesn't.

And as I say to people, you can't make it, you've got to let it.

Today, Colin's patience is rewarded.

The light suddenly improves and he is able to capture

the drama of the Great Trango and Cathedral Towers.

The expedition now enters one of the most spectacular places on Earth.

A two-day journey will take the team to Concordia

and the classic view of K2 - the world's second highest mountain.

But getting there won't be easy.

We're crossing the Baltoro tomorrow on a completely new route.

Is that going to be difficult?

Not so difficult.

Yesterday, I sent my son and another porter,

looking this way,

he asked me and put the stones there.

-Marker stones?

-Marker stones, yes.

We're currently at an altitude of 4,500 metres

and you can really feel it when you're moving about.

If you try and move uphill, it fairly slows you down

and it's just a combination of acclimatising and patience.

The big difference between working in Scotland and Pakistan is that

you're totally dependent on the team that's behind you.

It's not just a simple exercise of watching the weather

and travelling on to location.

Here, you need to organise a huge logistic team.

As someone that's not unfamiliar with hauling 25 kilos up

to mountain tops, I take my hat off to these porters because they're

carrying 35 kilos, in this altitude, up the most arduous slopes.

Travelling in this environment becomes progressively more difficult

because there's less and less air

and the opportunities to wash are minimal.

I mean, I'm actually terrified to look at myself in a mirror,

which I haven't done for the last four or five days.

To achieve the images that I want for this project,

I'm prepared really to put up with a great deal of personal sacrifice.

I don't see it as sacrifice, it's something that's necessary

to achieve these images.

And if that means I have to get up during the night,

if that means that I have to sacrifice the comforts of my normal

living standards, if it means using a toilet tent for the next four weeks,

these are all part and parcel of achieving what is in my imagination.

There are very few luxuries on trek and the kitchen

really are responsible for providing most of them.

It's quite amazing what they seem to be able to cook up

in these hostile environments.

THEY SPEAK NATIVE LANGUAGE

The challenges of day-to-day living on the glacier are a bit tedious.

Just having to organise your tent

in a way that allows you to find everything,

from a head torch to ear plugs to drinking water.

And it becomes very much a routine.

You've got to really organise yourself in a way that

allows you to operate whenever the conditions dictate.

Once camp is established at Concordia, Colin wants to work

amongst the ice sculptures that are exposed on the glacier.

It falls into a very deep cavern.

But even the simple task of taking a photograph is complicated

and has its dangers.

There's a big difference between being here as a trekker

and on holiday and being here as a working photographer.

In terms of daily photographic tasks,

I've got a personal porter that will carry my bag.

This isn't through vanity.

It's got to do with the altitude that we're in here.

It takes me all my effort to get up the hills that I need to get up

in order to get my photograph.

I have a great porter called Mustafa,

and he carries my cameras in a rucksack and comes with me

to all the locations, regardless of whether it is dusk or dawn.

I've visualised an image here which was very much about

the white ice around here and the turquoise colours.

And yet, I've got the mountains and the moraine working against me.

It's a picture that's just not really speaking to me.

It's too complex.

What I like to try and do is simplify the pictures.

The mistake that is often made

is that photographers try and get too much in.

That's what I've done here, I'm getting too much in.

So I'm going to have to move...

..when I catch my breath.

HE PANTS

Just get my breath.

I think the only alternative that we've got is

to head up over the top of the glacier there and try

and get closer to the ice cave, where the colours are.

We've found a second location just a little on from the first stop,

which is a whole lot better.

Much simpler graphic, a big archway of ice and a river bending

and flowing towards me.

It was a little precarious setting the photograph up

because there was a sort of scree sitting on top of the ice.

As I moved to and from the camera, I began to push the scree away

and found myself literally skating on ice.

But I'm very pleased with the image

and I avoided the rather black, gravelly glacier and

the mountains behind, and distilled the image really from the landscape.

High on the Baltoro Glacier,

the weather is every bit as fickle as in Scotland.

This morning, the mountains are shrouded in a blanket of mist.

It's difficult to express the scale of this mountain landscape,

particularly when you can't see the summits.

But when they do reveal themselves, it makes you feel so insignificant,

so tiny, and although the Karakoram is a big area, it's also quite

a small geographical area

with four 8,000 metre peaks.

There are also 30 mountains that are over 7,500 metres,

all within this very small, concentrated area.

The Concordia itself is a bit like a giant earth-moving site.

The constant movement of the glacier

changes the profiles from year to year.

I was here nine years ago and it was considerably different.

The campsite that we're on now is much higher than we were before,

and the access routes have also changed to the different glaciers.

So it's a landscape that's forming, continually forming

and it is these forces that I'm trying to capture in my photography.

From Concordia, there's a final push southeast

on the Upper Baltoro Glacier to Chogolisa Base Camp at 4,732 metres.

Now Colin should be within striking distance of where

Vittorio Sella took his famous picture.

From this location, we can see the Muztagh Tower for the first time.

And this is really the key to the Sella photograph.

We need to move here in a direction that separates it from the landscape.

It has now become clear that the changes in the glacier

are making access extremely difficult.

It might not be possible to reach Sella's vantage point after all.

Looking from a high point, the glacier is particularly distorted.

It's a very challenging environment.

The glacier is covered with millions of rocks

disguising many of the crevasses that are there.

Sella's photograph to me sums up perfection.

It's a bit like a gallery of shape and form.

Every one of the big mountains is in shot and it's the combination

of the shapes, some of them towers, some of them minarets.

You've got the pyramidal shape of K2

and then you've got the very angular Gasherbrum.

It's a landscape that you won't find anywhere else in the world.

The expedition is now running out of time.

This year, the snow conditions on the mountains

are particularly unstable.

In the timescale available, it is impossible to go any higher

without risking a serious and possibly fatal accident.

It suddenly became very obvious that Sella's photograph

was taken at altitude, probably about 6,000 metres.

And we don't, within our itinerary, have the time to spend here

to acclimatise to allow us to go to 6,000 metres.

The photograph is also taken at the top of the Chogolisa Ice Fall,

which is a very tortuous glacier with many seracs and crevasses.

So, now that I've finally found the position that Sella

took his photograph, I've even more respect for the tenacity

of these early explorers, because they were in locations

that are prohibited to the vast majority of us.

After a year of detailed planning

and a Herculean effort by the whole team,

everyone must now turn back to Concordia.

But the expedition is far from a failure.

Colin has produced a number of images that will stand alongside

those of Sella.

Amongst these will be one that captures the majesty and grandeur

of K2, looking its most spectacular after an overnight snowfall.

I'm just hoping to get a bit more light into the amphitheatre.

We've had that sort of pink-yellow light this morning

just on the very tops, which was wonderful.

It's a bit dominated by shadow at the moment

and good landscape photographs are always a blend of light and shadow.

There's just a little bit too much shadow at the moment.

It's a little concerning that the clouds are beginning to sail in

and look like they will maybe settle on the summits,

but we'll need to wait and see.

It's absolutely fantastic, though.

The Baltoro Glacier has been covered with a fresh dusting of snow,

which has really lifted the aesthetic value of it photographically.

It just so happened in the space of the last hour-and-a-half,

we're getting some elevation on the light now

and it is really beginning to pick up the features on K2 there.

We're just really at the point where it is at its best.

Some clouds forming up over the Abruzzi ridge.

It's really the king of mountains.

It might be smaller than Mount Everest

but it is certainly the most powerful graphically.

We see our own heart in a landscape and, once adopted,

a landscape ceases to become just an entity but a state of imagination.

And that, for me, is what the Karakoram is about.

I think I've been very lucky

because I'm one of the few professional photographers

that have lived my own dreams.

You always know when you've got the picture.

If you have to ask yourself, have I got the picture,

the answer is always no.

When you've got a great picture, it screams out at you,

"Here I am, aren't you clever?

"Look what you've done, look at me."

And I'm pretty sure this morning

I'm going to have one or two of these images.