ENTRY DESCRIPTION
This is a panorama of our spiral galaxy above Machhermo, a tiny Sherpa village of around 30 people at 4500 metres above sea level. I ventured out into the pitch black (keeping alert for angry Yaks) at about 3:00am while on our hike from Lukla to Gokyo Ri. The tallest mountains you can see in the shot are Thamserku (6608m) and Kangtega (6685m). I used a 25 second exposure, f/2.5 and ISO 3200 to capture enough of the Milky Way. When I saw these shots the next day it made it worth carrying my equipment all the way up there.

I like the contrast in scale, with the entire Milky Way galaxy looking down on a tiny Sherpa village and found that black and white was the correct way to represent both the majesty of the Milky Way and the starkness of the village and landscape.

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