A Picture is Worth A Thousand Words...
...so I won't bother with a thousand, and just include a few words below. Mostly I'll let the images speak for themselves.
I wanted to dedicate a blog post to some of my photographer friends. I'm ever so slowly developing an eye for photography. Well, I should clarify that. I'm developing a taste for taking copious amounts of photos with my pocket sized point and shoot in an effort to produce at least one image that's worth looking at. Turns out, this strategy has started working for me. What this attention to photography has also given me, is a real appreciation for actually talented photographers. As a professional athlete, I've had the privilege of working with some awesome photographers, and I wanted to share with you a few of my favourite photographers here.
Jamie Finlayson
Jamie is not only a budding photographer, but also our local Squamish crusher. Jamie's climbed pretty much all the hard climbing Squamish has to offer, and now has his sights set on Dreamcatcher, 5.14d. He's getting close. Jamie, his wife Natalie, and their two dogs Furgus and Oscar are also some of our best Squamish buddies. Jamie recently had back surgery, the result of a previous life as a nationally ranked alpine ski racer, and apparently falling off a roof or something like that. Only a few short months later, Jamie just ticked a V12. Wow!
Rich Wheater
Rich is probably the godfather of Squamish climbing photography. He’s been doing it a long time, and is the eyes behind some of the most iconic images of Squamish rock climbing. Rich always seems to do an incredible job of photographing the whole story, not just the climber, but the surrounding landscape too. Because, let’s face it, climbing is about a lot more than just the climbing. Rich, and his partner Senja, are also among the first few people I met when I moved to Vancouver way back in 2004. I've been going on climbing trips with them ever since.
Chris Christie
I didn't really know Chris until he joined Jasmin Catton, Kinley Aitken, and I on a trip to the Waddington Range as our token male photographer. Chris is awesome, he does everything. He's a bad ass mountain biker, a bad ass big mountain skier, a bad ass cyclocross racer, and not to mention one of my fellow MEC Ambassadors. Chris always makes me chuckle because he'd be the first to tell you that he doesn't necessarily like all the exposure that goes along with climbing photography. Whenever I'm out with him on a photography mission I can hear him muttering to himself from his photographers perch about how much he's freaking out. But, he's always stoked to join in on a mission, and always takes AMAZING photos! I love Chris' work!
Andrew Querner
Andrew is like a 5.14 photographer. I don't mean he only takes pictures of people climbing 5.14's, I just mean he's that good. I get the impression he takes climbing photos to keep himself busy when he's bored. Mainly, he's a sought after documentary photographer, whose work has gained the attention of media outlets like, The National Post. Obviously, his eye for telling a story with his photography is evident in his climbing photography too. Below is an image from a series of his work titled, "Shelter from the Storm". As a climber, it's pretty impressive to me how much tension and emotion I can gather from this image of Sarah climbing an alpine route in the Rockies as a storm rolls in.
Rich is like my little brother. I’ve watched him grow up in the mountains, and I’ve watched him develop as a photographer. I liken Rich to famed coastal explorers John Clarke, or John Baldwin. He has the incredible ability to suffer. His adventure of choice is long obscure mountain scrambles, all the while with his ridiculously heavy DSLR camera in tow. Despite the enormous amount of suffering he puts himself, and his unsuspecting trip partners through, he always comes away with incredible photos of smiling, happy people. Unlike some of the other photographers included here, Rich has another full-time job so he doesn’t get to updating his blog, or Flikr site very often, but when he does it’s full of not only incredible images, but detailed trip reports too. If you need beta on some mountain your friends have never heard of, then check out Rich’s blog. It’s probably got the detail you need, including where the best pee spots are on the approach.