Sleepless Night
James Balog took this photo in the early 1980s. It was technically radical for its time and, as far as he knows, it's the original "lighted tent by moonlight" image. It's been imitated countless times because of its widespread publication. "In fact," Jim says, "people now imitate the imitators."
The campsite was at 17,000 feet in the Nepalese Himalayas. Mt. Everest is just out of sight to the left; the mountain in the background is Nuptse, which rises some 25,700 feet. "I was on a Time magazine assignment on tourism in the Mt. Everest region," Jim says. "It was one of my first really big assignments as a budding nature photojournalist."
If you'd like to produce your own version, know that a full moon helps a lot. "It was two o'clock in the morning," Jim says, "and the air was crystal clear. The shutter was locked open for about a half hour. The film was 64 speed Kodachrome."
Jim's Sherpa guide walking the campsite with a headlamp accounts for the light streaks; the tent light was Jim walking inside during the long exposure and popping a flash a few times. The camera—an FM2 fitted with a 50mm f/1.4D AF Nikkor—was fixed to the biggest, sturdiest tripod he was willing to carry up the mountain.
