“Everest Not Everest” an Amazon Best-Selling Book is Available for Free Download (Until 09/20/2024)

Best Seller Publishing announces the release of Jeff Botz’s new bestselling book, “Everest Not Everest: A Dramatic Photo Essay and Plea for Honoring the Indigenous Naming Traditions of the World’s Tallest Mountain.” It will be available in the Amazon store for free until 09/20/2024.

This book is a classical photo essay about the Himalayas but even more than that it is a love letter to those mountains, the people and culture of the land surrounding the world’s tallest mountain. This is not another collection of travel, documentary or adventure photos but a personal, poetic visual response to one of the world’s most dramatic landscapes.

The photos in the collection were made with the same large format film technology that was used in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century to illustrate the untamed American west and other remote lands around the world. Unfortunately, that Era of Exploration photography could not access the Himalayas because the borders of Nepal and Tibet were closed to all foreigners so the classic photos were never made. Jeff Botz started this photo mission using the 35mm color format but found it too reductionistic to capture and express the majesty and grandeur of the mountains or the aura of spirituality which has characterized the area since time immemorial.

Working particularly in the style of Ansel Adams using black and white film and the clunky 8x10” film camera, Jeff has strived to create landscape photographs that transcend documentation and travelogue. Like the great masters of the two dimensional mountain imagery, Caspar David Friederich, Albert Bierstadt, Frederich E. Church and Ansel Adams, it is Jeff’s intention to invoke associations and metaphors of inspiration, personal challenge, struggle, achievement and self realization as well as suggest these mountains as forget-me-nots of the Creator/Universal Life Force.

“I’ve seen a lot of photography of natural wonders and little of it moves me. I suppose, like most of us, my sensibilities have been dulled by the National Geographic easthetic of what I might call the ‘informative sublime.’ Remarkably, the best of [Mr. Botz’s] images transcend that model.” - John Coffey, Curator of American and Modern Art, North Carolina Museum of Art

The essay should be considered as part of the postmodern critique in that it rejects the validity of the 1857 British naming of the world’s tallest mountain which existed on the border of two sovereign countries, Nepal and Tibet, neither of which would even permit the British to enter. This naming as an honor to George Everest is simply another example of nineteenth century British colonial plunder which today represents a subtle injustice and financial loss to both Nepal and the Chinese Autonomous Region of Tibet. Jeff Botz ends the essays encouraging readers to honor the indigenous people and cultures by using the local names Sagarmatha (Nepal) and Qomolungma (Tibet, China).

“Everest Not Everest” by Jeff Botz will be available for free download on Amazon for three more days (until the 20th) at: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CLYNJ2S6

With a rating of 5.0 stars on Amazon.com, here’s what some people are saying:

Antique Edition
“The photographs contained in this collection as well as the argument to restore the indigenous name to the highest peak on Earth are equally important. The stunning photographs capture a landscape that is rapidly changing as global warming ravishes the iced peaks and valleys of the Himalayas. But Botz’s photos are also historically significant in their own right.

Jeff Botz may be the most important photographer of the Himalayan region of all time, and yet he is relatively unknown. Consider these facts as you contemplate his amazing art:

• Between 1999-2019, Botz has made eleven expeditions to photograph the Himalayan Region.
• Botz has taken the only known photographs of the Everest region using a large-format camera.
• Botz prints his unrivaled photographs of the high Himalayas using the silver gelatin techniques outlined by Ansel Adams.
• May 9, 2012, as Botz set up his 8” x 10" view camera at the 21, 854’ level on Mt. Everest, he achieved the highest recorded deployment of such a camera in photographic history. He also reached a milestone in creating a comprehensive photographic survey of the world’s tallest mountain and its surrounds, the body of which has grown with each return to the Everest region.

In every way, this is a remarkable collection. It is clear that Botz is not just making pictures for the media and graphic arts gristmill. He believes in something universally relevant in the austere and seemingly abstract designs of snow, stone, and sky in the high Himalayas.”

Chuck Bloomer
“Stunning Photographs. Beautiful images. Happy with purchase.”

WorldsCoolestRainGauge
“Even viewed on a computer screen these photos have immense power. Equally powerful are the author’s spare but pointed words asking us to consider the impact that our dubious habit of giving ancient and sacred places self-referential western names has on the culture, economy and spiritual life of the people to whom these places truly belong.”

Jeff Miller
“These magnificent eloquent black and white photographs by Jeff Botz reveal the primal power of the towering Himalayan landscape and honor the people, the language, and culture of Nepal.”

For More Information:
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Contact Information

Jeff Botz

Author & Photographer

Best Seller Publishing, LLC

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