"For those few seconds, we chased something completely unreasonable, and it worked."
Shelter from the sun /
Started the climbing season by going to the Utah Hills outside of St George this past weekend with Chad, Tamara, and Polly (always nice when zie schedule lets me climb with my wife). Honestly, at first I wasn’t that excited about climbing there. I’d heard that the climbing wasn’t that good, the forecast was pretty darn warm considering I’ve been skiing the last several weekends, and I was intimidated to start the season with steep sport climbing.
All the photos are in the Climbing 2011 set on Flickr.
Its been a reoccurring theme over the last couple of weeks (also read here from yesterday: Choose your risk) that nothing risked, nothing gained isn’t just for finance. Its good for the heart too. If everything we do had a known outcome and totally safe, why would we choose it?
Once I decided it would be more fun to just climb and enjoy being out, the uncertainty faded out and it turned into a great weekend.
“Everything in life is a challenge. You can accept the challenge to improve. Or you can bask and distract yourself with success. It’s up to you. After all, sport is about personal growth. In the mountains you have the opportunity to challenge yourself beyond any means available in daily life.”
And while limestone sport climbing is obviously not the mountains, the process of choosing to grow instead of choosing to back away can be the same.
And it was really good to bring in the full camera kit of lenses, flash and the film camera to just play. Looking forward to getting the film developed, so much harder to wait.
a manifesto /
An intentional life is worth living.
(inverse of Aristotle’s line)
1. Turn off the television.
2. Reject advertising.
3. Stop eating fast food.
4. Take less medication.
5. Stop mindlessly surfing the internet.
Details here: Its about Progress, Not Pefection
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Sometimes the backstory can be just as interesting as the main attraction.
Also, the production value that these guys get out of a set of dSLR’s is pretty amazing; lots of cool rigging ideas.
American Alpine Club's Story Project /
A collection of oral histories from the American Alpine Club Library. The story project, created by Jason Albert, celebrates the legacy of climbers as they reflect upon their lives in the mountains. The American Alpine Club Library maintains a circulating collection of nearly 20,000 books and videos devoted to mountaineering and rock climbing is available for members to borrow. The Library has special strengths in American and foreign guidebooks, Mount Everest and the Himalayas, the Alps, and mountaineering history. The core mission of the American Alpine Club - inspiring and supporting climbers since 1902.
Inspiring collection of interviews. Looking forward to watching this grow.
http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-american-alpine-club-story/id393340795
Shades of gray /
In general, we like our heroes and their struggles to be black & white, good vs. evil, etc. We want them to do good because they are good, but what happens when reality comes crashing and it turns out that there’s the possibility that the hero is also a liar and a thief? Does the good they do get outweighed by the bad? How much bad would you tolerate in the mix if the end result was good?
That’s more or less the ethical problem at the root of the Three Cups of Tea/Three Cups of Deceit controversy that brewed up yesterday. In one hand you have Greg Mortenson’s story, books and charity to build schools in Pakistan & Afghanistan and the proof that soft power and relationships can heal some of the cultural wounds caused by a decade of war in that part of the world. In the other hand you have Jon Krakauer, who donated a tidy sum of his own money to the charity, calling out Greg for fabricating large parts of his story, for unduly profiting from the charity, and for mis-handling the building of the schools.
How much would it be worth to heal a war-torn corner of the earth and bring some, even small, amount of reconciliation? Or how much is it worth to educate children in a place where that education could save their life and livelihood? If a movement to build schools and bring education to such a place was started by a liar, does it matter? Maybe it does. The use of large amounds non-profit funds for personal use seems harder to forgive, especially since the people being helped have so little.
I’ve never met either of these men, been to Pakistan or Afghanistan, and I’m not going to pass any sort of judgement on the situation, its sad no matter the outcome. Even if Krakauer is completely wrong, a large number of people will probably become cynical about another non-profit mishandling funds to help the third-world, and all this and could hurt some of the help than can be done. And if Mortenson is indeed a liar and profits off his charity, hopefully what comes to him as a result doesn’t undue the movement and charity that’s building up a region instead of bombing it.
Related Links:
http://www.threecupsoftea.com/
http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7363068n
http://outsideonline.com/adventure/travel-ga-greg-mortenson-interview-sidwcmdev_155690.html
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New friend on Flickr.
Shelter From the Storm /
These photos are the inspiration for climbing photos for this weekend’s trip to St George. I know it’ll be cragging and not alpine climbing and el Chalten, but I really like the feel and the simplicity.
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Some things should remain impossible.
Re-occurring theme this week that mystery and accepting uncertainty & unknown has a value all it own.
Potentially the final word on HDR images? /
Really like what this article has to say:
So what does HDR have to do with Galen Rowell’s book ‘Inner Game’? Well, there’s a nice little chapter in there where he discusses why photos look different from life and why they affect us the way they do. To surmise what he said (as far as I understood anyway), he suggests that black areas of an image – the dark, sillouettes or underexposed areas, trigger a very primal emotion in us all. That of danger, or as he likes to suggest – shadows suggest mystery and it’s something we’ve always had to look out for in our existence.
Does ‘Bad’ HDR remove mystery?
From The Art of Adventure Photography by Bruce Percy
We don’t need every square inch of a photo to have the full dynamic range, detail or focus that we see every day. Nice to find a better explanation, one that resonates with something that makes us human, and is beyond just the technical details of a photo.
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An example.
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pocket contents on Flickr.
today anyway.
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Interview with the inventor of the digital camera:
http://www.davidfriedmanphoto.com/blog/2011/04/inventor-portrait-steven-sasson.html
April powder /
Can’t complain about winter holding on too long if it brings 30+” of fresh, cold snow. Toured up both sides of Mill D this weekend, and as always the skiing (and waist deep snow) is made better by good friends, laughing and conversation.
Had some good laughs over this one.
Starting back up a ridge in the Mill D drainage on Sunday. The trees branches were covered in a light dusting (yay for low winds).
This one is fun larger.
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Good day on Flickr.
It was a good day.
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Prototype on Flickr.
Lots of satisfaction from seeing my designs in hand, especially when they work.
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ESA astronaut waving. Inspiring photos via In Focus, the Atlantic: The International Space Station expedition 26
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There’s no embed for these, but the videos that just posted to the National Geographic Adventure page by Fitz Cahall of the Dirtbag Diaries, and they are a really interesting look into sports I consider normal, but maybe that’s not the case for everyone. Definitely worth checking out.
http://adventure.nationalgeographic.com/adventure/fringe-elements/adventure-sports-videos/
Video still by Byran Smith
There’s a good line in the video above that’s basically, get a camera and start. Doing and starting and learning from experience is better than waiting till you have all the training and gear to start being able to tell stories. After seeing all the rigging and tripods, I’m thankful that I started with a ‘still’ camera.
Tom's Hill tour /
Fantastic tour up in Big Cottonwood today. Fresh, deep snow and good folks. Glad to see Sam and Niki have a good time after the warm temps and slushy snow of the last two days.
The full set of photos are in the Skiing 2011 Set on Flickr.