On Annapurna with Ed Viesturs
December 11, 2007 | Leave a Comment
There are only 14 mountains in the world above 8,000 meters (26,000 feet) and only a handful of people have climbed them all. Until May 2005, no American had achieved such a feat. Ed Viesturs had 13 of them under his belt and was saving Annapurna for last. As a professional mountain guide and climber, Viesturs, like many others, finances his climbs through sponsor support as well as book and movie deals, and working the lecture circuit. Viesturs chose msn.com as his online partner for the Annapurna climb, which was great for me, because it meant I was hired to field produce (produce, shoot, edit, transmit) the online coverage of what was predicted to be a historic event in mountaineering history.
Extreme Australia
December 10, 2007 | Leave a Comment
Episode # 7 in the Richard Bangs Adventures series on Yahoo took place in Australia with extreme as the theme. Australian native and well known adventure photographer Jonathan Chester was our guide for the episode and we followed him across the continent. Our ultimate destination was the Phillips Island nature Preserve where Chester would photograph the littlest penguins as they came ashore under the moonlight.
Hands down this was one of the most fun shoots I’ve ever done. We posted our itinerary on Yahoo’s trip planner. The highlight was heli-rafting the raging Johnstone River. As you might imagine a helicopter brought us in and took us out, but the most awesome part was filming the rafting action from the chopper. The canyon was pretty tight but the pilot skillfully manuevered the chopper to get me close into the action. With my headset and boom mic on I would communicate to the pilot things like, “cruise medium speed up to that rapid timing it so we arrive right as the boats are in the middle, then rotate 90 degrees to the left and dip slightly to get a top shot of the boats.” Or calling audibles during the filming like, “ok, follow that raft keeping the bird in the same position.”
Climbing Everest with Blind Climber Erik Weihenmayer
December 10, 2007 | Leave a Comment
On May 25, 2001 I stood on the summit of Mt. Everest with Erik Weihenmayer and 9 other of my good friends. As everyone was high-fiving all I could think about was my job. I had a seemingly simple job; shoot some publicity photos of Erik and the team on top with the sponsor banners. There was one problem. I had arrived on the summit later than everyone else and as I was gearing up for the fastest shoot of my life my climbing partners were ready to head back to Camp 4. Generally speaking, the top of Mt. Everest is not a place where you chill out and have a tea party (although I’m sure it’s been done by now). You get up, check out the view, shed a few tears if you can muster up the emotion through the altitude induced narcosis, and then get the f$@k down.
For the full report check out the near daily dispatches with photos from the expedition at http://www.2001everest.com/
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