How I Made It - The Himalayas

In the series of articles “How I made it”, I want to share with you how I created some of my photographic works and how I edited some of my photos.

Today, I am going to tell you how I imagined this black and white photo that I titled “The Himalayas”. I designed it as a diptych, an image composed of two parts. Both original photos were taken in the Langtang Valley in Nepal, where I spent a few months last year in 2024.

I had imagined this diptych in my mind before heading to the mountains. I wanted to create a perfect symmetry between two peaks. My initial idea was to use the same photo and flip one of them upside down to get this final result below, which I really like too. I also wanted to work in black and white in order to accentuate the contrast effect.

But then, on the way back down, I took several photos of incredible valleys, this kind of place where nature seems to offer its most perfect harmony ! Then I realized that the shape of the sky looked exactly like a peak, but upside down.

I tried to recreate the same effect, using the same photo ( below) and flipping one of them. The final result is interesting, but definitely not as good as the combination of the two images, mainly due to a slight asymmetry and the clouds in the sky. A perfectly blue sky would undoubtedly have made the result more appealing.

I finally decided to create this diptych with my first picture of the peak and the second of the valley.
Here is the final result in color before editing and the final result in black and white after editing.