Head to Indian Creek.
I decided to head to Indian Creek, Utah, which is one of my favorite climbing areas. Indian Creek is home to a very specific type of traditional climbing on splitter cracks that are typically the same width for the entire climb.
Capturing rock climbing is physically intense.
Capturing the sport of rock climbing is physically intense. It involves carrying huge backpacks loaded with climbing gear, ropes, food and water as well as camera gear up to the base of the cliff. These packs can weigh up to 34 kg (75 pounds) and that is without lighting gear. Add in lighting gear and the packs start to get really heavy.
For this shoot, Ted my assistant/climber was there not only to help carry some of the gear to the base of the cliff but to also be up on the wall holding my ELB 1200 pack and an HS flash head.
Ted could just about climb anything I pointed at, which was critical, because we typically placed him on an adjacent route across from or next to the one that our climber model Savannah, climbed. For this assignment, having the right crew had a huge impact on the quality of the final images.