Hone Hunters and Dark Nights: Eric Valli's Himalayan Films
A photographer and film director born in 1952 in Dijon, France, Eric Valli originally trained as a woodworker. At eighteen he walked away from that life, crossed Afghanistan on horseback, and eventually made Kathmandu his home. Working alongside National Geographic and "Le Figaro," he built an international reputation through projects such as "Hone Hunters" and "Hunters in the Dark," and he has taken home the World Press Photo Award (WPP) three times.
Born in Dijon, France, in 1952, Eric Valli rode a horse across Afghanistan when he was 18 and reached the Himalayas at 20. In 1999, he directed the film "Himalaya," which earned an Oscar nomination and won the César Award. His 2014 photography collection, "Natural Corners: Exploring the Lives of People on the Edge of the World," reveals the stories behind more than 100 of his photographic works. As he put it, "I love living in the lives of others, in destinies where I do not exist.
When he was thirteen, Valli received a Kodak camera from his parents as a Christmas gift. That unexpected present resonated deeply within his emotional nature—he was so filled with joy that it brought him to tears. At seventeen, he undertook his first trip, heading to Lebanon, Libya, and Turkey in the Middle East, where he encountered unfamiliar ways of living and being. A world he had never known revealed itself to him, rousing both excitement and a deep awe for the marvels of life.
At twenty, he had already crossed the Namib Desert’s golden dunes in Africa and passed through the unstable regions of the Middle East and Afghanistan before arriving in Nepal. There, he instantly fell in love with the Himalayan landscape, and for two decades he made it his home, embarking on a photographic quest to portray the lives of those dwelling at the world’s edges. As he put it, “I am a storyteller. To tell a good story, it takes time and patience.
Each person I photograph acts as my teacher. I take joy in occupying the lives of other people, in fates that do not include me.
In the honey-gathering seasons of spring and autumn, honey hunters from the remote mountains of central Nepal would scale unsteady rope ladders and hang suspended over sheer precipices, risking death to harvest honey and secure their livelihoods. This was the subject of his first documented story, titled "The Ancient Honey Hunters on Himalayan Cliffs." In that work, he became "the honey hunters on the sheer cliffs," and as he described it: "I quietly step into their lives, humbly live within their fates, and bear witness for them through my records.
One day, I found myself marooned on a rain-soaked precipice, and a local beckoned me into his wooden hut for shelter. Within, I spotted a vine ladder hanging from above. Gesturing toward the cliffs that loomed thousands of meters beyond his home, he recounted the tale of his late father, a honey hunter who scaled those very cliffs. In the years that followed, I traversed many mountain paths across the Himalayas, seeking out honey-hunting communities that had managed to endure. That same collection of photographs appeared on National Geographic’s cover in 1988 and captured first prize in the World Press Photo competition.
Valli immersed himself in the experience, sensing the sunlight and rain of the primeval forest. Eventually, by luck, I located the world's last surviving master of the ancient honey-hunting craft. That elder had no time for an outsider like me, so I said, "If you die, your honey-hunting craft will vanish forever—unless you take an apprentice. And that apprentice is me." He then accepted me as his student, and for two years I trained on the cliffs of a remote village.
At age 27, someone told Valli that each winter, yak herds cross from Tibet through the Himalayas to Nepal's foothills, seeking fresh salt and food. He wanted to follow the tracks of the yak salt caravans. In doing so, he merged with nature and forgot the self that belonged to the fragmented modern civilized world. He trod through snow while searching for those caravans, and in the Himalayan region, he repeatedly explored the valleys, nearly dying from typhoid fever.
He was compelled to stop the expedition, as he was exhausted in body and mind and short on money. Following a period of rest and after gathering additional funds, he set off again in pursuit of the yak salt caravans. It was during a fierce snowstorm that he at last came upon the yak salt caravan in Tibet.
When she was 12, Valli had come across a passage in André’s travel book—by the French adventure writer, describing a Himalayan trek—and this moment appeared to re-enact that very description: "Huge snowflakes fell, covering us as we moved slowly and the beasts breathing heavily. High above 5,000 meters in the Himalayas, we walked on ancient paths trodden by ancestors. Herds of yaks, like ink marks across the steep snow-white mountains—yaks, people, snow—all moved between heaven and earth.
Valli vividly remembers staying at a friend’s house, where the basement shelves held a neatly arranged collection of National Geographic magazines spanning forty years. He would immerse himself in those volumes, carefully examining and analyzing the photographs to discern the reasons behind their selection, the narrative threads linking them, the reasoning governing their ordering and layout, and the differences in image scale. His life was largely spent on the road, devoted entirely to his photographic pursuits. How awe-inspiring.
A photographer is by nature a witness to stories and a teller of legends. He wondered what emotions the photographer had instilled in a certain image and why it affected him so deeply. Driven by an eagerness to learn, he devoted three full days and nights to this examination, barely noticing the passage of time. He remarked, "I never intended to describe a beautiful scene with words, because I believe photographs are the most compelling medium.
In 1983, during a yak-herding expedition in the Dolpo region, Valli came across the tribal chief Thilen. While the two were watching Akira Kurosawa's "Seven Samurai" on one occasion, Thilen turned to him and said, "You should consider making a film about the Himalayas." The Himalayas: picking the toughest route. "They are perfectly suited to tell a story: with a beginning, an end, clues, protagonists, the strength of characters, the fragility of humanity, and the pursuit within the heart. This process is what fascinates me the most.
In "Himalaya," Valli told the life story of his old friend Thilen, who played the lead role. Set in Tibet, the film portrays a Himalayan village where generations have relied on salt trading because grain harvests were insufficient. After nine months of immense challenges, Valli completed the film in 1999 to global acclaim. Valli has said that he believes film is more powerful than writing or photography.
He recalled that at a crossroads in his life, he visited a practitioner in the Dolpo region to seek guidance from a revered monk, who told him, "When you face a choice, if you are strong enough, choose the path filled with thorns." He made the film to preserve a historical record for these plain Tibetan people. He said, "Local culture is slowly melting away like winter snow. But if we join forces to make this film, future generations will be able to understand the lives their ancestors once lived.
Although we have invented electric lights, we have forgotten that the night sky is full of stars. "That way, you will uncover your greatest potential"—these words became Valli's motto and were clearly reflected in the film "Himalaya." Later, Valli resided at an altitude of 5,000 meters, digging for cordyceps alongside the Tibetan people, and they lived together for several months.
We frequently overlook our connection to nature. We created electric lighting, yet we forget the star-filled sky at night. We rely on efficient phones to save time, but we don’t know what to do with it. Meanwhile, Valli crossed the dangerous mountain peaks repeatedly, amassed a huge collection of photographs, and produced the documentary “Himalayan Gold Rush.” He respects people who support themselves through physical work—they understand how to live. The highlanders carry an innate toughness in their very bones.
Surviving avalanches, falling off cliffs, and confronting countless other perils, Valli narrowly avoided death many times during his two decades in the Himalayas. He cared more about the breadth of life than its length, as he once said: "If you live fully, with vitality, then death holds no fear." Throughout his life, Valli told the destinies of others, and within those vivid narratives his own shadow is reflected. Meanwhile, the deep ravine-like lines on the faces of people who have lived for generations in the harsh plateau climate bear witness to their enduring tenacity.
These individuals—forgotten by modern civilization—dwell with quiet strength in a corner of the vast earth, between heaven and earth. In moving image after moving image, he made an eternal record of them. Nature never forgot them.