Selfies weren’t a thing in 1985, but I couldn’t resist capturing this moment. I asked my trekking partner, Koman, a local friend, to take this photo with me in the frame to provide scale for the breathtaking view of Gangapurna, its glacier, and the stunning glacier lake nestled in the then-remote Manang Valley, tucked behind the Annapurna Massif.
At the time, no roads existed along the Annapurna Circuit trek, and it had taken eight days of walking to reach this point. With the formidable Thorang La pass still ahead, we paused for a day in Manang to acclimatize before the ascent.
The original slide was shot in 1985 using a Nikon FE camera with a 50mm lens on Fujichrome film. To digitize the image, I bracketed the slide with a Nikon D850 camera and refined it using Lightroom, Photoshop, and Topaz, enhancing its depth while preserving the essence of the original capture.
