The Onsight Chronicles

TEN QUESTIONS

Here’s a recent interview with Discovery Channel Magazine. I’ve posted the whole article here as well as given it a more permanent home in the articles section here. This is a fairly general interview about my background and thoughts on photography. Lately I’ve also been getting lots of questions about the specific techniques and equipment I use for my climbing photography. I’ve been compiling those questions and hope to get time to start answering some of them here on my blog soon. In the meantime, as always, please let me know you thoughts in the comments below.

When did you first start taking photos and why?

When I was about 15 I simply just developed a fascination with the medium of photography. I really enjoyed experimenting, creating images and playing around with the photographic process. Soon after I started photography I began processing my own films and turned the bathroom into a part-time darkroom. This gave me the opportunity to experiment and become absorbed in the process. Of course these days the process is very different.

But as well as a fascination with the medium, I thought photographers had great jobs — involving travelling the world, seeing remarkable things and working with interesting people. Looking back I guess I sort of got that last bit right, just not in the way I expected!

At school photography was the only career that really interested me. I tried to pursue it as a career and spent two years working in photography at a university but ended up spending most of my time working in the darkroom printing uninspiring images for scientific reports. It was leading nowhere and totally killed my photography dreams so I quit, went travelling and climbing and got involved in outdoor activities. It wasn’t until ten years later when I was climbing full-time that I decided to try professional photography again, this time combining it with the things that really interested me. The timing turned out to be right and having inspiring subject matter made all the difference

What led you to your fascination for such adventurous subjects?

Perhaps it was that the school I went to introduced me to lots of different outdoor activities – like caving, bush walking, back-country skiing, abseiling and climbing. I found those more interesting than team sports and I’m sure the people and places we went to had lots to do with it. I think that I was lucky to have a close nit group of friends with the same interests. We used to organise our own caving and bush walking trips from when we were 15. I started reading classic mountaineering stories, about Everest and the Eiger; the climbers in these stories were definitely my heroes. When I was 16 I somehow convinced my parents to let me go on a commercial ice-climbing course for a week, where we learnt how to use ice-axes and slept in snow caves. I must have been keen because they made an exception to allow such a young kid to go on the course. And for sure I’m lucky that my parents supported, or at least tolerated, my crazy dreams.

What is it that made you start climbing?

When I was 17 the “Outdoor Education” course at my high school gave me the chance to go rock climbing a few times and I quickly became hooked. At first I actually wasn’t particularly good. I mean, I wasn’t bad but I wasn’t great either and somehow this frustrated me. I think having read so much about mountaineering I somehow expected to be instantly good at rock climbing, but I wasn’t. So I practiced and practiced and trained and trained. We built a climbing wall at the gym at school and every free hour I got I’d be on it trying to make the hardest traverse possible across the wall. I started climbing on some of the buildings around town for training and soon some of the best local climbers kindly took me under their wing, taught me some technique and started taking me out on the bigger cliffs with them. Growing up in Canberra, Australia, there were no real mountains nearby but there were several good cliffs. I loved both the physical and mental challenge and found it a totally absorbing activity. In those early years it was quite addictive because you could feel yourself getting better and stronger all the time; a problem or challenge might have seemed near impossible at first but within a week it could be something that you could cruise.

What are the most fascinating aspects of working so purely, with no props at all?

Well I guess it’s just that – the purity of it. Ideally speaking, I think it is for each photographer to decide for themselves what they photograph and how they want to do it. For me, personally, I have no particular interest in working with props; that just seems contrived to me. I think that the outdoors and climbing in particular offer some amazing opportunities for “real” photography but the trick is to accept — even embrace — the challenges. I’m trying to capture action and achievements that takes place in some of the most spectacular places on the planet. For me the whole challenge is to show what’s happening, and particularly to show how beautiful and spectacular these places are. Anything else to me is a cop-out. For example, I could, if I wanted, just take photographs of a climber ten feet off the ground, and use a super long telephoto lens, a tilt-shift lens, or a “lens baby” lens to blur a lot of the image and not really show the situation. Now that can be useful in a commercial situation, or you could easily create an image that might be considered rather “arty” – at least by some people’s definitions. But to me a far more interesting challenge is to find the most spectacular places, the craziest settings, the wildest climbs, the most unique and interesting rock architecture – then figure out what you most want to emphasise and then work out the best way to show it. I want to let the situation do the talking, rather than some fancy technique, so I try to approach the actual photography in a fairly straight and pure style. Timing and camera position are my main tools. That makes for some really interesting challenges. But I think having skills as a climber gives me some great opportunities for photography and the challenge of that makes it interesting to me.

Do you try to embed any secondary meanings into your images, or are they simply that – an image?

Basically they are just images and it’s up to the viewer to interpret them and take from them what they will. But having said that, I do emphasise the setting, the environment, a lot in my images so there is a bit of a secondary meaning about the importance of the environment – both to us as rock climbers but also the importance of the environment in a more general sense.

Did you have to make any special preparations for shooting climbers?

It depends on the situation, what I’ve conceived for the shoot, and how familiar I am with the area. If it’s a new area to me then I’ll spend some days getting to know the place, perhaps climb some routes myself, learn the best way to access the cliff-tops or find where the descents are for example, look around for interesting climbs, see what the light is doing at different times of day, and see what angles I might be able to get on things. Sometimes I might abseil down in several different places to find the best angles on a particular climb. Then I might fix some ropes in place, or stash some ropes or gear somewhere, so that when it’s time to do the shoot I can get into position quickly so I don’t miss the shot or slow things down.

What do you learn from the people that you photograph?

I’ve been lucky to photograph some of the best, boldest, and most accomplished climbers in the world. I’ve got to know many of these climbers and have come to realise that, of course, we are all human. The truly great climbers have just been lucky to find something in their lives that they love. They are passionate about it, live for it, and embrace the challenge of it. It has shown me that if you are positive and passionate enough about something and really commit and dedicate yourself to it, then, well, who knows what you can achieve? But certainly you will never know if you never try.

What do you hope to achieve or inspire in viewers by taking these photos?

I just simply see my images as a kind of celebration of climbing. It’s a celebration of what climbers do, what they go through, their vision and what they achieve. And importantly it’s also a celebration of the incredible places where it takes place.

Also, I think it’d be great if, through my photography, people got a greater understanding of climbing – about what it involves and why people do it. However I’m not necessarily actually trying to encourage more people to take up climbing, it has its dangers for starters. But I’d be happy if people understood it more and could see the positive side of it. In some media climbing only gets press when there is an accident or something bad happens, so it’d be great if my photography acted as a small counterbalance to that.

Who inspires you a) as a climber and b) as a photographer?

I’ve worked with so many inspirational climbers I’m reluctant to pick just one. It is not necessarily the strongest, craziest, or even the best climbers who have inspired me most; sometimes far from it. The most inspirational climbers I’ve come across might have great strength, endurance, technique, experience and skills on rock. They might be “bold” and they face up to their fears but are certainly not reckless. They usually have a fairly diverse skill set because they’ve worked on their weaknesses. They seem far more interested in setting personal goals and pushing personal limits than comparing themselves to others or “winning” competitions. They have a sense of fun and spirit of adventure. The most inspirational have something about their attitude; they radiate positivity and encourage and respect others. I guess they’ve “checked their ego at the door”. Australian climber Mike Law is someone who really inspires me a lot. He was one of the best climbers of his day but over the last 20 years has established hundreds of new climbs for climbers of all standards. His passion for climbing is obvious and the work he has done to make climbing fun and safer for many is just phenomenal.

For photographer the late Galen Rowell still inspires me a lot. Not so much for his photography, which was great, but what really stood out to me was his ability to write about the thought process behind his work. He was very articulate and his generosity in sharing his ideas was exceptional. Some techniques have changed a bit in recently years (with digital photography) but I think his books like The Art of Adventure Photography and Galen Rowell’s Inner Game of Outdoor Photography are still required reading for any budding outdoors photographer.

Is there a particular message in your work?

Well, I guess, in a nutshell, it’d have to be that the world is an incredible place and climbing is a wonderful way to see and experience it.

Do you take other kinds of photos for relaxation?

I’ve always been interested in a bit of landscape and nature photography and enjoy wandering around places with a camera to see what I can see. Also now I have a baby daughter who has just turned one. She’ll probably grow up thinking of her farther as the guy who’s constantly shoving a lens in her face and saying “smile”! I couldn’t think of a better subject.

Describe these shots in one word, then give an explanation of what you mean.

Spectacular! Ordinary people doing extraordinary things in spectacular places.