Image: Camp at 20,000 feet – The last day. Photographer: George Leigh Mallory (1886-1924), Glass Plate Negative, MEE21/0715
The image on this year’s membership card is taken from the Society’s collection of photographs from the 1921 Everest expedition. Called Camp at 20,000 feet – The last day, it was taken by George Leigh Mallory.
The images from the 1921 expedition were one element of new and detailed survey work in the Himalayan region, and they are among the first photographs to document Everest.
Mallory described the thrilling, other-worldly experience of capturing the images of Everest in his official publication following the expedition:
“Mountain shapes are often fantastic seen through a mist: these were like the wildest creation of a dream… Gradually, very gradually, we saw the great mountain sides and glaciers and aretes…until far higher in the sky than imagination had dared to suggest the white summit of Everest appeared.”
Mallory’s image on the membership card has, along with some 20,000 other images of Everest within the Society’s Collections, been expertly preserved through an intricate process designed with the help of Salto Ulbeek Publishers.
You can find out more about this year’s membership card image, and the Society’s wider collection of Everest images, in our online exhibition. Mallory’s image, and many others from the 1921 Everest expedition, are also available to buy in the form of a platinum print or as a conventional print.