Like his father Giuseppe Sella , who wrote the first general handbook on photography to be published in Italy (1856) and was a famous alpinist after whom a big group in the Dolomites is named, Vittorio Sella combined photography with climbing. From 1880 onward his exploits in the Alps, the Caucasus, Alaska (1897), Equatorial Africa (1906) and the Himalayas (1909) mostly as official photographer to the Duke of Abruzzi's expeditions made Sella's photographs world-famous. Many of these climbs established altitude records. Studies include the Matterhorn, Mount Biauro, Mount Blanc, and the Himalayas including Mount Everest, Baltoro (Karakoram).