«*» *■ Photo from Royal Geographic Society Capt. Noel's 1922 Conquest of Everest by David L. Clark In the tographers themselves are gradually forgotten with is easy time. tures I recently produced a documentary for the National Geographic Society's Explorer series titled "Cameramen Who Dared" profiling some of these present age of instant image gratification it to take for granted the ease with which pic¬ of global events reach television every day. But there was a time when physically reaching certain destinations was questionable, a time when and untried, when pictures from far off corners of the world would take months to reach their audience. In spite of such handicaps, successful images were made by a breed of bold cameras were new pioneers who often had to invent their own equip¬ ment and improvise as they went along. For the earliest cameramen, especially those who ventured to remote places, the rigors of their travels were often as challenging as their work. Sadly, most of these early films now humbly in various archives and the cinema¬ camera reside 36 American Cinematographer August 1990 early cinema pioneers who first ventured into jungles, mountains, combat and the sea. I was par¬ ticularly impressed with an English cameraman I interviewed who at age 98 still possessed vivid recollections of his experiences as the first to film Mt. Everest some six-and-half decades ago. His name is Captain J.B. Noel and his road to Everest was a curious one. John Baptist Noel was 22 years old and a junior officer in the British Army when he requested a posting in Northern India. Possessed with the idea