I met Michelle and Sylvan in Bend, OR this summer and shot them highlining in Smith Rock. Michelle is from Colorado and was excited to come back and visit. She hit me up and wanted to do some acro yoga shots. I had been wanting to shoot in the Boulder Bandstand for a while and thought it a perfect opportunity.
City of Boulder workers were working on the lights when we got there and were super gracious, even changing the color of the lights to what I thought looked best. I had two shots in mind, so I didn’t really vary too much from my vision. Pretty happy with the results!
I’m from the Midwest, and I don’t particularly like leaving Colorado to go back, but I regularly have Red River Gorge, KY on mind. My girlfriend can attest that I compare pretty much every climbing experience to ‘the Red.’ Basically, most complaints fall under “it’s not overhung enough.” I was psyched when she said she needed to use 5 vacation days and wanted to see what climbing in Kentucky was all about.
Melissa getting a sit-down rest on EGBG (5.10a) before 60 feet of overhanging jugs at the Chocolate Factory
She loved it! I love it. And I can’t wait to go back.
I got to explore some new areas and go back to some of my favorites. The first day I accidentally took her to Bruise Brothers at Muir Valley (was aiming for Tectonic Wall, but I went on autopilot and walked almost all the way to BB before I realized it). Rat Stew and The Return of Manimal are superfun routes to really get you in the RRG mood. We then explored Bibliothek, an area I’d somehow never gone to before. Incredibly aesthetic, overhanging jug hauls, a less steep Motherlode. I jumped on a Josh Thurston original with a tag at the base that says 5.12a, The Unbearable Lightness of Being. I was psyched to get the onsight but felt it was easier than 12a. Turns out most everyone agrees that it’s 5.11c. I then tried The Fury, which is a beautiful arching overhang that you see from across the amphitheater. My leftover pump from Unbearable was too much, and I ended up taking 2 or 3 times.
Day two we drove down to the Motherlode area by PMRP. I’d spent a lot of time at the PMRP but never stopped at the Motherlode. Cars were parked all over the road leading to the big hill down to the parking lot, which I thought was odd. In the past, this was frowned upon. As I make the turn to go down the hill, spray painted signs warn entrants, “4×4 only!!! Do not drive 2WD Down.” Typically the low flats areas are the problem, mud pits that I used to rally my Mazda Protege5 down with mostly no problem. So in my dad’s 2wd Toyota Tacoma I thought it would be fine. The hill was the worst I’ve ever seen it, enough I worried about getting stuck at the Motherlode parking lot.
“We can deal with that later.” I wanted to check out The Chocolate Factory since it had several highly rated moderates. Wonkaholic 5.10a felt quite a bit harder than the previous day’s Rat Stew. We then did EGBG, which is new and not in the book. Fantastic! Way better than Wonk.
Melissa after finishing EGBG
I tried the fun Hip to the Jive (11b), which starts with a superfun handcrack at the bottom and moves into shallow pockets in an overhang. I missed a hold at the top while above a clip and took a 30-some foot whip, sending Melissa far into the air. My thought while falling, “Man, I hope I don’t hit that face to the left!”
We climbed the classic 10’s, just to the left of the incredible looking 5.14c, Pure Imagination. The Glass Elevator, Oompa, and Loompa. All felt hard for their grades but are fun routes.
Oh, I almost forgot to mention, the best part of going to Red River Gorge the first week of November was being in the magical sub-tropical forest with all the beautiful changing leaves.
We met up with an old friend and her boyfriend, and climbed at the Gallery on day 3. I forgot how awesome this place is. The classic five star warmup, 27 Years of Climbing, had a line, so I put up A Brief History of Climb (5.10b). So so very good, and incredibly beautiful arching overhang. I quickly ran up a second time with my camera so I could shoot Melissa on her Onsight attempt.
Johnny B. Good, Guernica, and Preacher’s Daughter rounded out the climbs in the main area. Preacher’s Daughter is soo soo good! (this is a continuous theme in the Red. Even 2 star routes here would be 4 star classics in most climbing areas)
Another climber on A Brief History of Climb
I tried Gold Rush with our friends, a stellar 5.11d with a stout, overhanging crimpy crux to a dyno finish. It’s exciting! Then after I was pumped out I tried Random Precision and felt rather shut down. I put up the draws again on Johnny B. Good and Melissa one hung her first 5.11a!
Thursday it was supposed to rain, so we went to the area near our cabin, Military Wall. Always a classic with climbs like Fuzzy Undercling and Tissue Tiger, it’s a safe place to climb it does start raining. The start of Fuzzy has been eroded down, and so the climb has been upgraded to 5.11b, purely because of the very powerful, hard boulder problem start, getting to the second bolt. Day four on and my skin was finally tired after pulling on the crimp undercling too many times. once to the second clip you get to enjoy overhung plate goodness to a no-hands knee bar rest and fun jugs to the finish. Our friends put up Tissue Tiger (5.12b), so I gave it a try. I was very surprised how easy the bottom 3/4’s of the climb felt, just good-enough jugs to a couple of rests. But then you hit a series of big moves through powerful crimps and side-pulls. It’s going to take me a few more times of sussing out the crux before I’m able to clip those chains.
My goal for the trip was to send one of my two 5.12a projects, so after 3 climbs on day 4 decided to take it easy, especially after the rain came. Melissa and I went to discover what Natural Bridge State Park had to offer.
Awesome views on a moody late afternoon.
We woke up on Friday surrounded by a deep fog. I wanted to get on my project early so we could get back to Bloomington at a decent hour to see old friends. Driving to The Zoo I couldn’t help but stop and photograph this scene before sunrise.
But even after sunrise I couldn’t help but shoot some more.
Finally, we get to the Zoo and I warm up on my project, Hippocrite (5.12a). I thought I might send, putting up the draws, but messed up what has been my crux, clipping bolt 3. I’ve tried this climb for years, and I was ready to put it to bed.
Melissa wanted to record my attempts, which I’m happy she did. I’ve never had a video of me climbing before.
I love Red River Gorge. No matter where in the world I’m climbing, I don’t think I’ll find a place I love more. I can’t wait to come back!
This year I got connected with Bicycling Magazine, and they have been assigning me editorial portraits around Colorado. Here are the ones I’ve worked on so far this year.
Pro Tour Cyclist, Kiel Reijnen started making his own BBQ. They wanted to feature him at an interesting BBQ location and picked Yum Yum BBQ in Larkspur, CO.
Megan Hottman is a lawyer in Golden, CO that focuses on cyclists, and just happens to be the 2015 Gravel World Singlespeed Champion. I shot her on North Table Mountain in Golden.
Nick Basalyga rode across the country, mostly solo, for his non-profit, In the Saddle. Follow the link to find out more about him. I shot him north of Fort Collins, CO.
Since winter has returned to Colorado and snow is covering much of the landscape I’ve really started thinking in black and white. It helps that on overcast, snowy days, the landscape tends to be a bit monochromatic.
It seems like it’s been a long time since I’ve tried to really intentionally create art. I love the action photography that I do, but it’s not always…art. With my tiny Sony A6000 and my new Rokinon 12mm F/2 lens (super sharp! I’m really excited I bought it) I’ve been inspired to carry my camera more places. The saying is true, the most valuable camera is the camera you have with you.
A couple weekends ago I went on a solo tour of East Portal. It was right before new snow was coming into Colorado and I wanted to go up higher toward the Continental Divide than I’d been before to try and see a couloir a buddy skied a few days earlier. I don’t go out solo often, but I had a great tour and took some time to take photographs.
The couloir Eric skied was somewhere in that cloud.
The highpoint of my tour
After my ski tour I had some time before I had to be back in Boulder, so I made a concious effort to stop and take photos along the road.
I drive passed this old school house every time I go skiing at East Portal. I finally stopped to capture it in a snowstorm. And of course, with the bright yellow, I had to present it in color.
Boulder Creek had some very interesting shapes after the new snow.
I tried this one in black and white, and it seems so much stronger in color. What do you think?
I stopped on the Colorado University campus that was beautiful in the dumping snow.
The next day I went snowshoeing with my friend Greta up near Nederland. Boulder Canyon was closed because a semi had jackknifed, so we took Coal Creek Canyon. It was a great choice.
Greta enjoying snowshoeing.
Then some random black & whites from the last few months.
The Brainard Lake zone has some fantastic skiing, but a long approach.
I skied the couloir in the center-left of this image with Eric Poore on an extremely warm June-ary
A tree being blasted by the wind, the shoreline of the Barker Reservoir encased in ice from the spray off the waves, near Nederland, CO.
When I get new gear for whatever reason I want to shoot it before I dirty it up. I recently got some shoes from Scarpa for a spec shoot and some shoes from Adidas Terrex. Before destroying them I set up my home studio and went to work.
I started off with the Scarpa Crux approach shoe. It’s a sturdy shoe with good Vibram rubber. It is quite comfortable, but I haven’t taken it out on any long approaches yet.
Using a piece of glass under your subject adds a bit of interest to a product photo, but as with anything, don’t over do it. In this case I used a piece of glass from a broken 16×20 frame. Taping the edges helps it not cut things and you, and I think makes it a bit sturdier.
I employed a method of lighting using only one light but giving off the appearance of a complex multi-light setup. Put your camera on a STURDY tripod and use and cable release so you do not bump your camera during the process. For this to work you camera has to stay completely still.
I use a LumiQuest SoftbBox LTp with my Speedlite 580EXII on a wireless slave as my one light. It’s 10″x14″, giving you over 40x the surface area of a Speedlite. Interpretation: it gives you much softer light. With the Speedlite on a wireless slave I can move around my subject freely without bumping the camera position. I take multiple shots with the light in every possible different position.
Next step: Photoshop! In Photoshop open all the different versions of the image that you think you’ll use. Pick one to be the base image then drag all the other photos on to your chosen “base”. Holding Command + Shift while doing this will align all of your images. Create inverted layer masks on all but the base layer and begin “painting” in the light that you want. Presto: Magical Multi-Light image.
A few weeks ago Jon Cardwell asked me to come out and shoot with him and Chelsea Rude for a project.
Chelsea Rude climbing Rubble (5.13b)
We went back to Sex Cave in Clear Creek Canyon to get some shots of them sport climbing. It was an ideal location because of the easy access from the road and the ability to shoot from the ground. I hadbroken my back a few weeks before and could not hang from a rope.
With the help of my girlfriend I set up my lights how I wanted them and prepared to shoot, but I realized I was missing something. I had forgotten to pack the connector wires for the radio slaves. My studio strobes could not be fired remotely, well directly from the slaves. So I quickly figured out a solution.
I would have just used my Canon Flashes, but they are not powerful enough to get the results I wanted. I connected my Pixel King radio slave to my flash and used the built in optical slave on my White-Lightning strobe to fire into an umbrella that broadly lit the underside of the cave. The spill light from the umbrella hit the optical sensor on my Yongnua YN-560 flash, firing it into the back of my other White-Lightning strobe, giving me the rim light I wanted. It was super complicated and tricky to enact, but the diagram below might help you visual types.
The diagram is, of course, inexact, but it give you the idea. Using optical slaves to pop your lights remotely is a great, fast and easy approach to lighting. A lot of times in my studio I will just use a speedlite set to 1/128th power to pop all the lights in my set up. But in a less controlled environment using wireless slaves gives you much more control.
Jon Cardwell on Rubble
After the climbing we used the great afternoon light over the Flatirons to shoot a few portraits using just one Speedlite in an umbrella and the sun as rim light.
I don’t recommend leaving behind pieces of equipment you need. I definitely need to be better at double checking my gear.
Today’s post is pretty simple; photos of Matt Lloyd climbing on Kloeberdeath/Lipsync (5.12b) in Eldorado Canyon. The original ascent using knotted webbing as protection is INSANE. I followed the route and it was scary enough (Matt, ever the gentleman, made me clean it). I’m glad there was bolted protection.
Shooting on a bright sunny day in a roof area can be very difficult. I used a studio strobe light at full power, probably 60 feet from the climber to fill in the dark shadows.
Admittedly I was not great about adding posts from this past winter. I’m still trying to catch up, and there’s a lot to catch up on.
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Matt Lloyd swinging into Three Tiers at Officer’s Gulch
Matt Lloyd calls me quite often at 6:30 in the morning with a ludicrous amount of energy and enthusiasm. “Let’s go climbing today!” Sometimes it’s Eldorado Canyon, sometimes it’s Clear Creek or Table Mountain. Wherever it is it doesn’t matter, it’s just good to get out and climb. And honestly, I’m incredibly thankful that he does call me, even though I do value my sleep and I’m usually less than enthused when I answer the phone. I’ve gotten to explore so much of Colorado in the last fifteen months because of those 6:30am calls.
Late last November the moral in the snow sports community was low. We’d gotten some good early snows but then remained dry for most of November and December. But this meant that many of the ice climbing areas that normally have a very high avalanche danger were clear for climbing.
Matt calls and says we’re going to do our first bit of ice this year at Officer’s Gulch with our friend Colin. “Awesome, I’m in. But I don’t have my ice tools yet.” Matt tells me, “It’s fine, I’ll pick you up a pair.”
I call him on my way to the carpool lot, “Matt, in my excitement to leave I forgot my helmet.” This is not unusual. I’m pretty good at forgetting important items. “Well, the good news is,” Matt tells me, “I have an extra helmet. The bad news is I forgot to grab you tools. We’ll figure it out. We’ll make it work.”
Officer’s Gulch, otherwise called Tenmile Canyon, has some great ice climbing that is reasonably accessible, but most of the winter it can be dangerous to climb because of the avalanche danger. Some of the classics, however, are The Shroud (WI 3-4) and Round the Corner (WI 4-5). But we wanted to get a warm up for the season on Three Tiers, 500 vertical feet of WI 2-3 and low angle ice walking up – you might have guessed already – tiers of good climbing. Good thing we chose this, having 2 sets of tools for three people is precarious.
The first pitch is the crux of it. Easily solo-able but without tools for everyone, thankfully, we rope up. It’s good to be swinging into ice again. I started last season at the Ouray Ice Fest and kind of fell in love. I’ve been rock climbing most of my life, but there’s something about ice that’s addicting in a different way.
After the first pitch I get left with a trailing rope and and no tools. For the low angle ice it’s not a problem, but when I reach the vertical sections I start employing my rock climbing skills. I crimp on ice scars from my friends’ tools and pull on columns to get myself up. It’s a great exercise in footwork. Thankfully, and maybe surprisingly, I didn’t fall.
We bushwhack and scramble to descend most of the way down the mountain, setting up a rope and rappelling the last fifty meters or so.
I’m excited for the rest of the season, but it will make a big difference with my own set of tools.
At the beginning of this year I had a ton of Southwest Airlines Frequent Flyer Miles from my Southwest Airlines credit card. I found that I could take trips to Salt Lake City for almost nothing so I started planning to go back and shoot some skiing. After a failed attempt to set up photo shoots in Utah in February, I rescheduled my trip for mid-March with much better success.
I have to give props to Southwest Airlines here. I cancelled my flight in February less than 24 hours before departure and my phone conversation went like this:
Me: “I need to cancel my flight to Salt Lake City for tomorrow.”
Customer Service: “Ok, I will add your points back to your account. Have a great day.”
Easiest interaction with customer service ever. Try doing that with United….
Anyway.
I met up with my buddy, Nick Rothenbush, at Snowbird and went out exploring for the day. The snow conditions were not great, but we founds some nice cliff lines. Pretty much in general the snow was not great. The week before the Wasatch had been hit with a pretty good storm, but the week I decided to come out the highs were in the 60’s everyday. So instead of getting killer pow shots I concentrated on getting some big airs.
Brighton connected me with Treyson Allen, a snowboarder based in SLC. He immediately takes me on a hike to a bowl below Pioneer Ridge, which has endless possibilities on a powder day. But we found some really esthetic lines.
Treyson Allen dropping in.
The beautiful view from Preston Peak
Trying to get a good slash.
Two high school shredders, Walter Shearon & PJ Baymiller, meet me after they get out of school early. They take me all over the mountains, trying to find any hidden stashes. It’s amazing how much young guys can bounce on terrible snow. It makes me feel old that my knees can’t take it anymore. They would get some big air and land on the cruddiest crud like it was 2 feet of pow.
Walter Shearon
PJ Baymiller
There were a few stashes of fresh
Kyle Sul is a freeskier and ski base jumper. He spends his summers base jumping in Norway. He agreed to come out and see what we could get at Snowbird. Despite a subpar morning, the afternoon thaw made the snow soft enough for some great shots.
We meet up with Chris Crane and Niels Omana, friends of Treyson Allen. They are psyched to get some big air.
Chris Crane getting it clean
Niels Omana getting the grab
Kyle Sul taking off
I had a great week in Salt Lake City, but it makes me wish that Snowbird and Brighton were in my back yard. I’m loving living in Boulder, but…the access to skiing is not the greatest and the skiing is not the best. I found out first hand recently that the snowpack in the Colorado backcountry is unstable.
It was great working with all the athletes. They really put it on the line for me. I’m psyched to shoot a lot more skiing and snowboarding next season. ANNDD hopefully we have a much better snow year next season.
