Climbers on the summit mushroom of Nevado Chopicalqui, 6354m high, in PeruIntroductionIn my (very biased) opinion, mountains are the most beautiful environment on the planet, and certainly a very important source of great photography. But besides their intrinsic beauty, those big stacks of rock have another attribute that makes them of special interest to imagemakers: they are inaccessible. Or rather, very difficult to access, requiring special knowledge, equipment, and physical abilities. Which means that the perspective from mountains is likely to be very unique, only having ever been seen by a very select few. Beauty and originality, the dreams of any photographer, come (almost) for free in climbing. It is no wonder, then, that most of the climbers I know have a deep interest in photography.

However, the blessing of mountain climbing photography is also its curse. Because it is so difficult to get there in the first place, because the climbing itself takes up so much effort and...