Had a really nice write up — and double-page spread — in the Weekend Australian Magazine. Sweet!

This is what it says:

Fifteen years ago, when Monique Forestier was just starting out as a rock climber, she saw a photo that changed her life. Taken by the renowned climbing photographer Simon Carter, it depicted an ascent of the Totem Pole, a 65m dolerite pillar that rises like a cruise missile from the ocean at Cape Hauy on the Tasman Peninsula, southeast of Hobart. “It blew me away,” she recalls. “I thought, ‘Those guys are crazy. There’s no way I could ever do something like that.’”

The image was burnt into her mind, though, and it’s funny how things worked out. Forestier subsequently met Carter, and married him – and here she is climbing the Totem Pole during the pair’s Tassie holiday. She’s one of Australia’s top climbers these days, but even she admits feeling intimidated when she finally stood before it. “The whole pillar looked like it was swaying,” she says. “I thought, ‘Oh God, what have I got myself into?’”

She was no longer entertaining such thoughts halfway up, though – even while perched on tiny holds that were slick with sea-spray, being buffeted by the wind. When she’s into her flow on a hard climb, she explains, her mind is “totally absorbed” in working out the correct sequence of moves that’ll get her higher. If she gets that sequence wrong, or takes too long, she’ll likely fall. Not that that worries her unduly. “I trust my rope [mostly out of sight in this shot], my equipment and my belayer,” she says.

Forestier, who lives with Carter and their three-year-old daughter Coco in the Blue Mountains, west of Sydney, is climbing the hardest routes of her life at 38 – an age when most elite athletes have long since peaked. And she did make it to the top of the Totem Pole without falling. The elation, she says, felt like electricity coursing through her body. Then there was a rather different challenge: getting off the thing. But that’s another story._Ross Bilton

Talking about recently published work, here’s a few shots in Klettern Magazine’s (Germany) poster format 2012 wall calendar.

Monique Forestier, Twisted Reality (28), Blue Mountains, NSW, Australia.

Onslo "Slo" Carrington attempting his project on Butterfly Valley Crag on Cat Ba Island, Halong Bay, Vietnam.

Monique Forestier attempting Some Kind of Bliss (31), Diamond Falls, Blue Mountains, NSW, Australia.

The team at Climb Magazine (UK) have been producing a fantastic magazine of late and have kicked off the new year with their first ever Photo Annual, or “Photographic Issue” to be precise. Well, I’m hoping it’s going to be an annual thing anyway. Judging by the digital preview on their website (which you can see here) it’s looking good with lots of interesting articles. There is also an interview with yours truly.

I haven’t seen the actual magazine yet but it has a great cover.    I think the black and white works well. The shot of Crystal Davis on El Matador (5.10d) at Devils Tower, was taken using my special camera apparatus thingy to get the angle — more on that coming soon, promise!

My interview was by Ian Parnell, no slouch with a camera himself. Thanks Ian, for the opportunity to share some of my thoughts. And thanks to my assistant Cathy McBey, for shooting my portrait for this (not really a self-portrait as credited – now that would have been tricky!).

I’m looking forward to checking out everything else in the mag as soon as it arrives. Come on Australia Post!