Mountains of the Moon
One of the highest ranges on the African continent and supporting an amazingly diverse, occasionally unique range of flora and fauna, the Rwenzori mountains in Uganda take their lunar reference from a description by ancient scientist and philosopher, Claudius Ptolemy. Mountains of the Moon is a photographic tribute by internationally renowned photographer Steve Russell, who has explored this region over the last several years and developed an intense fascination with its natural history.
Five thousand metres high, on the border between Uganda and the Congo, the Rwenzori Mountains, with their glaciers, rocky outcrops and vast variety of flora and fauna are like nowhere on Earth. This range was first photographed in 1906, when Italian photographer Vittorio Sella accompanied Luigi Amedeo, Duke of Abruzzi, on an expedition to document and record the mountain range and surrounding areas. Sella was particularly interested in the glaciers and his photographs of these, prompting Ansel Adams to describe them as ‘inspiring a definitely religious awe’, now reveal to us the gravity of the effects of climate change, exposing as they do the awful extent to which the ice has retreated.
Steve’s collection of timely and compelling images accompanied an exhibition at the Royal Geographical Society, London in 2019, where multi-shot panoramas were painstakingly stitched together and printed at three metres in pin-sharp cinematic detail, allowing the viewer as close an opportunity as possible to experience these mountains remotely in their full and stark splendeur.
