We’re here in Marpha after our third successful eye clinic – a beautiful, medieval looking town stacked against the mountainside. Yesterday we ran our surgeries along with a simultaneous screening camp, and Dr. Indra worked alongside our NYEE team. I got to try out the new Macro lens with amazing results – inches away from the eyeball, I was terrified I’d bump the surgeon and ruin someone’s day.
Check this out: a before, during, and after of a cataract removal in macro, pulled from my footage. I’ve seen some things, but this has to rank amongst the coolest.
I’ve also gotten a lot of mileage out of the slider this trip, and I’ve been trying to get creative with it, using it as a little crane, and getting some cool moving timelapses – here’s one of our sets below, shooting down on the clinic courtyard from the roof.

I’ve also had a chance to set up some cool shots with the doctors through their opthalmic lenses, adding that magnification to the already tight macro shot to literally see inside the pupil. Being able to see the eye pathology so closely is really something – here’s a corneal opacity from one of our patients:
Today the bandages came off, and our patients regained their sight – always a sublime moment to witness.
This afternoon we head to Pokhara to debrief and try out the local apple brandy. It’s been a great trip, and I think I’ll come out of it with some of my best images yet. Here’s a sampling:
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Daniel Byers is an expedition photographer and filmmaker, as well as an experienced climber, mountaineer, and diver. He has worked for National Geographic, the BBC, and USAID, crossing many of the world's extreme landscapes in an effort to tell stories that need to be told.