As a visual person, I simply love to look at a good climbing or outdoor images. Most people who look at a shot will often think wow, that climber looks amazing. They may read the caption and see what the route is and maybe the grade. I am a bit of an anorak, and will try and work out what type of lens was used, wide, mid-range or zoom, how the depth of feild effected the shot and most importantly who pressed that button.
If sponsored climbers live and die through there media coverage, then with the internet and print media, their deals can potentially be in the hands of the snappers who steal those images. How a photographer captures that split second in time is part science and part art. The science comes down to an understanding of what you can do with the focal length of a lens, the depth of feild, the exposure and the focus. However whilst this maybe part science, the art comes by how the photographer utilises these variables and frames a shot.
To be a great photographer, requires just as much skill as climbing, albeit less physical, as virtually everything is achieved through controlling a camera with a finger and thumb on one hand. What I am wanting to do in this article is quite literally focus on the photographers that have both inspired, entertained and enthralled me with their images of ascents over the years.
I have already manage to get a few of my favourite photographers to agree to be interviewed. As I recieve them back I will put them up online here. If you want to see just who’s been done so far then I am going to tag the posts ‘Focus On’, which should pull up all the posts in the series.
So far I have hopefully got Alex Ekins, Alex Messenger, Ian Parnell and Adam Long. I have asked a few others and I am waiting for the response. If you have any other suggestion or would like to be featured as a photographer, then please comment or email me.