The image “Mt. Kailash, Tibet, 2013” is the last photograph in my
Sacred Geography series and the only one made with a digital
camera. All other photographs appearing in this book are silver
gelatin prints created from four by five negatives. The story is this.
In summer 2013, I hauled my large-format camera and sheet film
into western Tibet in order to make a photograph of the sacred
mountain. It was a long way to go for one picture, but it would
complete a ten-year project. The peak had eluded me throughout
the preceding decade, for reasons either of bad weather or political
unrest, and I had wanted to complete the Sacred Geography project
with an image of Mt. Kailash and also to ritually circumambulate
the mountain along an ancient pilgrimage route. This photographic
expedition to Kailash meant I had to carry film through more than

a note on the Last PhotograPh

a dozen security checkpoints equipped with X-ray equipment,

transport it across hundreds of miles of challenging terrain, and

load the film in wind, humidity, and dust. And then get it back home

again for processing. I’d been dragging my feet toward digital work

for a number of years, but it became increasingly apparent to me

on this final Sacred Geography journey that it might be my last

film-based expedition in that part of the world. I exposed twenty

sheets of film and then put the big camera away. A few days later,

almost on a whim, I made a final photograph of the north face

of Mt. Kailash with a digital camera. When I saw the image in the

camera monitor I realized immediately that it was the most likely

way forward.

David Zurick