A Fly on the Wall

Half of my job is done once I am up on the wall. It is often said that “anyone can take this picture, but getting here is the hard part.” Welcome to the world of climbing photography.

I took this picture sitting on a bench 50 feet up the limestone wall, attached to an 8mm static rope. I had my camera bag strapped on to me, with two lenses and everything I need to last 3 hours mid-air, and I had to haul all of them up the rope.

I won’t go into the logistics of setting up the system and how to move up and down the rope (that’s for another time). Instead, I will talk about why it is so important to do so.

There is one specific reason why the most iconic climbing photos are taking while the photographer hangs off from the rope mid-air — to see the face. Through the face, the expression, the tension in the facial muscles, the place the eyes point, and many other details, we are able to understand the emotions of another person. That is why is it so important to capture the face — so we can experience what they experienced.

I learned this from the established Olympic sports photographer, Peter Reed Miller. He described two important attributes to good sports photos: see the face, and show peak action.

It is only from this top-down position, that we are able to get a clear picture of what is going on within Jame’s mind at this moment. We can see the tension from his face, that he is looking at his left hand holding on a very small feature. With this one picture, we can see where he was, where he is going, how he is going to get there, the physical and the emotional journey he went through. We are right there with him.

The great cinematographer Sir Roger Deakins teaches the importance of this closeness — think about where the camera is. The only way to capture the feeling of climbing is being right up on the wall, with the climber.

Here is Happy in “peak action” with his right arm and left leg almost fully extended. Being up high on the wall also means we can see the climbers dance with the rocks. We can see the full range of motion as the climber make their way up. If we were on the ground, we would see nothing but feet and have no idea what is going on halfway on the route.

Of course, if we can hike around to a higher location instead of setting up a fixed rope, by all means, do that instead lol.