IT TAKES a particular form of persistence to seek for a ghost. It’s unlikely you will discover one, however doubt means quitting, so you retain trying.

That is the artwork of monitoring snow leopards. Morup Namgail discovered it early. He was 5 when he first noticed one in his distant residence village of Uley in Ladakh, India. The world teems with wildlife – heaven for aspiring photographers like Morup and his brother Stanzin. These massive cats, domestically known as shan, have been immortalised within the BBC collection Planet Earth II thanks largely to their father, Norboo, who tracked them for the crew.

Ladakh was simply changing into well-known for sightings – then the pandemic shut all the things down. That’s when the brothers vowed to {photograph} one thing nobody had earlier than: a snow leopard beneath a starry night time sky. They hoped the picture would spotlight the fantastic thing about this mountainous area and its apex predator, thereby spurring efforts to guard each. This can be a place warming at double the worldwide charge, threatening the panorama and its wildlife. If the skin world might solely see what was at stake, the brothers believed it might affect the federal government to behave.

They spent months blanketing the world with cameras. However midway via the undertaking, Stanzin died of a coronary heart situation. Exhausting because it was, Morup pressed on alone.

Final August, on a 33°C (91°F) day, he climbed a 4900-metre ridge. “What I discovered on my digicam was my dream got here true,” says Morup. It was bittersweet, although. “In Buddhism we imagine in reincarnation. I see snow leopards on a regular basis and infrequently assume: what if Stanzin reincarnates as a snow leopard? Most likely he would pause for a photograph or possibly say hiya. Perhaps he did.”