Ice Climbing, March 17, 2012

Axel celebrates a successful climb atop Rock Creek Falls in the Beartooth Mountains, outside of Red Lodge, Montana. Captured with a Canon 7D and 70-200/2.8L IS II + 1.4TC III in aperture priority mode with an exposure bias of + 5/3 at ISO400, f/5.6, and 1/200th of a second. The camera was handheld.

PHOTOS ONLINE

Work sent me on an ice climbing trip to Rock Creek Falls in the Beartooth Mountains, outside of Red Lodge, Montana. They sent me to photograph a student, climber, for an upcoming magazine feature...I really do have a great life/job.

For photographers the problem with photographing climbing trips is that you have to both climb and shoot...that means that you are carrying both climbing gear and all of your needed gear to shoot the climb. I chose to suffer under a heavy load to bring with me the gear to shoot both portraits and the action of climbing. If my 5DIII had come in at the time I might have decided to pack a little lighter, and thus the approach and climb would have been much easier. I ended up using everything from 17mm on a 5DII to a 400mm on a 7D.

Having more experience than many of the student climbers let me haul a heavy load around with more ease than the student climbers who were carrying little to no gear, some of the leaders had heavy loads too, and the approach killed them :)

I hope to tag along next year with the ability to shoot, for the sake of shooting, rather than shooting with a specific feature in mind...next year.

Make the jump to go through the online gallery, I ask that you leave comments/criticism or at least give your favorites a thumbs up...Thanks!

If you have questions, ask. I published the camera information with each image and have added full keywords to share just about anything you would want to know about the images.

Happy shooting

When I was new to Montana...

Canon Pro1 at 32mm, aperture priority mode set at f/5.6, ISO50, and 1/400th of a second. Exposure bias of -1/3, shot handheld while on a hiking trip. Captured in JPG :(
THE IMAGE IS ONLINE HERE

I came to Montana in the end of August 2005, and I lead this hiking trip for Rocky Mountain College's Outdoor Recreation program to Quinnebaugh Meadows near Red Lodge, Mont. on the 18th of September (three weeks later). Trips to the Red Lodge area are amazing and more often than not I decide to take less photos, so I can experience the beauty of nature for myself and not through a camera's viewfinder. This is another image that looks much better after being edited with new software and what I now know about editing 5 years later.