The Onsight Chronicles

Climbing photography techniques and tricks is something I’ve been promising to discuss on my blog here for a while, so let’s start the discussion here – with the “vision thing”, because I think this is one of the most important things, perhaps THE most important thing, in photography.

Nikon recently invited me to blog on their new My Nikon Life website which they have just launched (check it out, you could win a D700). So what follows here is an edited version of that — my “Finding my Vision” blog.

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Now I could talk about how I used be a die-hard film-only fanatic – that is until I took the plunge to digital with the D3 less than two years ago and I haven’t looked back. Or I could talk about how I get asked a lot if I shoot much video and my answer is no, not much, my passion is in stills photography. But after using the D3s I’m convinced there’s a time and place for everything and it’s amazing how one extra button can open up a world of opportunities. Or I could talk about how the new Nikkor 70-200mm VRII has won the battle over several prime lenses for prime real estate in my camera bag. But the gear you need, or techniques you need, might be different from what I need, so I don’t want to get into any of that (yet).

Instead I want to talk about something rather more fundamental: Finding my vision for photography.

Do you have a vision for your photography? Do you know exactly what you want to do? And why? If so, then I think you are one of the lucky ones. I think if you have a positive answer to this, then the decisions you make in your photography, your business, your life, least of all what gear and techniques to use, will be that much clearer.

For me, personally, vision is an issue that I have struggled with enormously over the years. It has caused me to lose much sleep, tear my hair out, shed tears of angst, and, on a few occasions, following my vision has caused me to face real dangers and take some serious risks.

Right now, with where I’m at with my photography and in life at the moment, I’m happy to say my vision for my photography has never been clearer. I’m pretty sure about this; I’ve never felt it this strongly. I have in my mind’s eye some very strong ideas about the images I want to be creating, the body of work that I want to be producing. I’m not saying my vision is anything special or ground-breaking, but it’s my vision, I’m happy with it and I’m very glad to have found it. I’m not going to ignore it even if it makes some things harder.

But it was a long and winding road to the point where I’m at now and there were several dead ends along the way.

With hindsight, I think the most important, indeed essential step to finding my vision, was quitting my first photography job. That’s right — quitting. This was many years ago now. I had had a childhood dream of being a photographer and so after completing my high school certificate I found a job working in a university photography department. At first I felt like I was off to a great start and I worked in that job for two years telling myself I was paying my dues. But I ended up spending most of my time in the darkroom printing uninspiring images for scientific reports. In the end it killed my passion and I just couldn’t see it leading to the kind of photography that I wanted to do. So I quit the job, and also quit the night school photography course I was doing, and looked to do completely different things with my life.

It probably would have felt like I was giving up on everything, except fortunately, I also had another passion — the outdoors and in particular, rock climbing. Over the next eight years I traveled and climbed, completed a University course in Outdoor Education, worked in outdoor shops, and traveled and climbed more and more. Eventually I spent eight months full-time climbing, living in a tent at the base of Mt Arapiles in Victoria, climbing every day that I could. No commitments, complete freedom! And a strange thing happened. On rest days I started picking up my long neglected camera again… My friends were some of the best climbers in the country; they were doing amazing things in spectacular places and I started to document some of their feats.

The penny dropped. Even if it was just the beginning, at last I was on the road to finding my vision.

Some people told me it wasn’t possible to shoot climbing professionally in Australia even if it’s not all that you do. Being a climber, I decided you’ll never know if you never try. So the next year I tried, seriously tried. That was 16 years ago now. Balancing business demands and the pursuit of my vision hasn’t always been simple but it has just made it all the more rewarding.

Climbing is a very complex, diverse, multi-disciplined activity. There are some easy ways to photograph it and there are much harder ways. There are some outdoors shots I know are relatively easy to sell and others nobody will want. All of these factors have at times conspired to make it harder for me to find or follow my vision. But I’ve learnt a few things: The easy road isn’t always the right road in the long run. The more I’ve followed my vision, the more opportunities have come along — the more things have fallen into place and allowed me to move forward. And, as we’ve seen, sometimes you’ve got to step back to move forward.

Now I’m not spelling out here precisely what my “vision” is; if you’re familiar with my work then you might have an idea. I’m certainly not suggesting that my “vision” is better or more important than anyone else’s, heck no! For starters that seems a rather silly, pointless argument — a bit like arguing over the relative merits of different styles of climbing (though we all know how much fun that can be…). What’s important is that I have gone through a process and have found something; developed some ideas which have really inspired me — and that’s what is important to me. I think that has helped my photography enormously. No actually, it’s much more than that – I really think that’s what it’s all about!

If photography had only ever just been a job, a means to a wage, then I might just as well have stayed where I started all those years ago — working in a university photography unit. Or perhaps I’d be a random snapper, shooting any old thing. I certainly wouldn’t do the work that I do — and spend a good part of my life dangling off cliffs.

But my photography now is not a job — it is far more important than that!

I hope the road to finding your vision has been just as rewarding for you.

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PS. After writing and posting the above I just came across these comments from the man himself Chase Jarvis on his blog. Always one to inspire, he’s put it a lot more succinctly than I have. Seems I’m not the only one thinking about this.

“When I think about my own personal experiences, the times I’ve fused my creativity with that which I loved and cared deeply about, I was always made better, more interesting pictures, videos, art. Yet, I’m boggled everyday when I learn about photographers who continually lose sight of that—or worse—never know it. I’d by lying if I said it didn’t take me years to figure this out, and lying again if I said I’d never gotten off track, but let’s take 5 minutes right here and make a concerted effort to refocus on this as a community.

Take pictures of what engages you and moves you. The world—and Carl Jung—will know it by the outstanding quality of the work you will produce.”