Frozen in Time

The life and work of Vittorio Sella, a pioneer of early mountain photography and the man behind some of the very first images of the Himalayas

- Hugh Thomson

The city of Biella-although it is easy to think of it as a large town-is surrounded by the snowy foothills of the Italian Alps. The main square is overlooked by a branch of the Sella bank; while in its centre stands the imposing statue of Quintino Sella, the man credited with putting the newly independent and united Italy of the 19th century on a solid financial footing.

In 1879, his young nephew Vittorio was attending a performance of a Verdi opera in the theatre to one side of the square. Emerging towards midnight, his head ringing with the music that was to be a lifelong passion, he realized the sky overhead was cloudless and that conditions would be perfect for photography the following morning.

He made an impetuous decision. Dressed in full formal evening wear for the opera, he left his companion and departed immediately for the mountains, where he had set up a tent for just such an eventuality, and which was sheltering an extremely large camera. He walked through the night in his tailcoats to get there. The resulting picture from Mount Mars was one of his first outstanding panoramas and the true beginning of one of the most remarkable careers in photography.

Vittorio Sella was born in 1859 in Biella, a well-known centre for the wool trade in Italy, into a prosperous family who had owned textile mills for centuries. His father, Guiseppe Venanzio, had written an acclaimed treatise on the production of wool and another-more germane to his son's career-on the then new art of photography.