To celebrate and end the fundraising campaign of the Bristol to Base Camp 2019 expedition, we will be holding a very special ‘one off’ auction with a limited edition original image from Martin Hartley www.martinhartley.com
“I have experienced the polar world in all of its ferocity, when it is a challenge just to stay alive, let alone pull out a camera and take a photograph. Martin Hartley’s ability to take beautiful powerful photographs in the most difficult places to survive on our planet, is inspirational.”
— Sir Ranulph Fiennes
Puja Ceremony by Martin Hartley – World Renowned Expedition Leader, Polar Photographer, Climate Activist and Professional Photographer:
The Silent Auction starts on Friday 13 September and will run until 31st November 2019.
The print measures 36” x24” (nearly a metre long)
It is a limited edition of 20. Printed on a Lambda onto C- Type Photographic Paper (Traditional Photographic Process). The original image was captured on Medium Format Fuji Provia transparency film
Auction reserve price of £575
All proceeds from this auction will go towards supporting the work of Bristol charity, PHASE Worldwide in remote areas of the Himalayas
Puja Ceremony, Northern Indian Himalaya, February 2001.
Martin’s passion for using his hard-won expedition and photographic expertise to benefit the future of our planet has taken him beyond the polar regions to desert, jungle, mountain and oceanic environments. He has documented indigenous communities, corporate social responsibility initiatives and groundbreaking scientific programmes. Recently, Martin sailed with the Black Sea Maritime Archaeology Project documenting the largest multi-disciplinary maritime archaeology project in history. His work has been collected many international photography awards for both his expedition and his remote portrait work. Martin’s photography has been published internationally by: The National Geographic, The Times, The Guardian, The Independent, The Telegraph and the New York Times; The Washington Post, Hotshoe, the British Journal of Photography, Practical Photography and Outside Magazine. and The British Library.
This image was winner of the International Travel Photographer of the Year Award in the ’People and Places’ Category. The winner of The ‘High Asia’ Photography Competition and Most Recently a winner in a Global Photography Competition organised by Magnum and The British Journal of Photography.
“I had been warmly invited by chance into the home of a non-English speaking man in one of the Northern most remote villages in the Indian Himalaya. During the previous four weeks I had in the deepest mid-winter slipped, stumbled and fallen over each day along the treacherous 150 miles up the mostly frozen Zanskar River to the little hamlet of Padham. I had come to his village to document a way of life that was about to evaporate with the arrival of a new Indian military service road that was being built from the hustling town of Leh in Ladakh to this remotest and silent of hamlets which is cut off for 8 months of the year by the Himalayan snows. The man had invited me off the cold street into his home to be a guest at a very private bit very cosy Puja Ceremony, a prayer reading that takes several hours, and many cups of barley wine and Yak butter tea. I sat listened, and watched as the men sang spoke or quietly hummed each word of the ancient prayer. I knew I was witness to a scene that would only exist like this in the history books as soon as the road was completed. Everything in the room was made in the village, everything from the yarn, to the cups that were the drinking vessel of the chang and the tea. The road was completed in 2017 and the culture of this self-contained has all but gone. This image while nostalgic and beautiful is a question, what is progress?”
Auction ends 31st november at midnight.