Kathmandu:

If you’ve ever wondered what the Himalayan region was like around a century ago, then here is just the right book for you. Kurt Meyer and Pamela Deuel Meyer’s In the Shadow of the Himalayas: Tibet, Bhutan, Nepal, Sikkim — A Photographic Record by John Claude is one coffee table book that is one treasure you would afford not to miss.

As Kurt Meyer writes, “John Claude White was a civil engineer by education, a colonial administrator by profession and a photographer by vocation.”

This book is a record of what Claude’s observance of the Himalayan region. He was an engineer at the British residency in Kathmandu, and spent 20 years based in Gangtok as the first British political officer overseeing the British interests in Sikkim, Bhutan and Tibet.

The book is divided into very comprehensible sections like ‘The Setting’ — that describes the times, the kind of rule, the history, among other things of the Himalayan regions that Claude visited or was posted in. Then there is ‘John Claude White: The Man’ — giving details of the man who took the photographs. The rest of the divisions follow as such ‘Nepal: 1883-1884’, ‘Sikkim: 1889-1908’, ‘Tibet: 1903-1904’, and ‘Bhutan: 1905-1908’.

Along with some fantastic photographs of the beauty of the Himalayas, Claude has managed to capture the essence of what it was like a century ago.

In the foreward, Omar Khan writes, “A photograph shatters the glass between the present and the past. When John Claude White took these photographs, the moment was frozen on an embossed glass plate...”

The captions accompanying the photographs tell their own story of the Himalayan kingdoms then. What makes the captions more interesting are why Claude took those photographs. Like the caption accompanying the photograph of a Nepal princess in her huge flared skirts says that Claude was fascinated by it.

Meyer describes White’s work as “unique and different from that of other photographers of the 19th Century in India. Not better, not worse, but diferent. White was a pioneer in mountain photography”.

Published by Maping publishing, this is one book that is recommended to all Himalayan lovers. And as Khan put it, “Photography books are to adults what illustrated books are to children.”