A filtered crimson light illuminated the windowless room with a visceral glow. The smell of chemicals was toxic, instantly overpowering everyone except the white-coated man already working inside. After a lifetime spent in such environments, the Leica technician no longer even noticed it. Finishing another sequence of adjustments to the skeleton of an archaic negative enlarger, he flicked his head from side to side in silent appeal for more elbow room, mumbling something only to himself. He clearly preferred to work alone.
The man made one further minute calibration then paused, arms dropping to his sides, eyes closing as he mentally counted down some required delay known only to his experience. The instant it was over, he quickly reached for the eight-by-ten-inch rectangle of photographic paper set within the base of the metal frame. Taking a corner of the white card in the long jaws of a pair of tongs, he then deliberately slowed himself to gently slide it into the first of four stainless steel trays of developing fluids he had so fastidiously prepared. He began to bathe the blank paper, lightly agitating it within the clear chemical bath, his soft, rhythmic movements setting the fluids lapping.
A dark smudge dirtied the white rectangle’s center. Lines and shadows started to define themselves, growing in twists and turns like an aggressive black vine. The technician, completely and utterly absorbed in his task, carefully tweezered the sharpening image through the next three trays. With each transfer he leaned a little further forward, deliberately hiding it, still, at heart, the small, clever boy at the prestigious Karlsruhe Academy who would shield his impeccable schoolwork from the prying eyes of bigger, slower classmates.
The observers in the room tried to arch around him in response, each desperate for their own first look, but the diminutive man expertly blocked their every move. He didn’t care who they were; he had a job to do. Only when he was completely satisfied with what he saw did the technician finally push back to lift the fully developed photograph from the last tray. Reaching up, he clipped it, with two small clothes pegs, onto the makeshift drying line strung in anticipation of that very moment.
The still-wet photograph hung above them all, soft like lychee flesh, swaying a little on the sickly air. No one in the darkroom said a word. They just stared up at it rigidly, as if brought to attention in unison.
The image was black and white, yet to its small audience it shone down through the blood-red haze with all the colors of the rainbow. It showed a mountaineer standing just a couple of steps below the pointed white apex of a mountaintop. The cloudless sky behind was almost black, yet the figure at the center seemed to faintly glow, as if surrounded by an evanescence of a whiter, brighter light.
The baggy hood of the climber’s white canvas wind-jacket was thrown back. A pair of round-framed snow goggles were pushed up onto the ice-encrusted front of a fabric-peaked cap. Beneath, a woolen scarf wrapped the climber’s head, but it had been pulled down from the mouth to deliberately expose an exhausted yet triumphant face.
The figure’s right arm was projecting forward and upward into the sky, its mittened hand gripping the bottom of a long, wood-shafted ice axe in a straight-armed salute. The T-shaped head of the axe was high above, hooking onto the very edge of the atmosphere. Below the axe’s long pick was a small flag. At the very moment the photographer released the camera’s shutter, the wind must have gusted. In that fortuitous millisecond, the flag was perfectly unfurled, snapped back by the wind, its design unmistakable.
They all recognized it immediately.