The climbing area of Mount Arapiles in Western Victoria, Australia is a stunning destination. What has brought me to Arapiles for many visits is that there are thousands of quality climbs scattered on the walls of this rock mountain. The rock is so perfect and so accessable that night climbing is an option as well. Here Jordan Webster, a climber visiting Arapiles from California, climbs the uber classic Agamemnon.
To make this shot require a fair bit of pre-planning as well as a small team to help light paint the climber and surrounding walls with light. I will write more about light painting and how I made this photo in my next column in Australian Geographic Outdoor.
Possums might be a common thing in Australia, but like so much
of the wildlife I've seen on my travels around the country I find them
to be a strange and delightful sight. On a walk last night I saw a couple running on a power line. I ran home to get my camera and the little guys were still up there when I got back.
On a technical aside I would never have thought of making this photo in the film days.For this I used a Nikon D3s ISO 10,000 1/20 sec f 2.8, the lens was a 70-200 VRII shot at 92mm handheld. The focus is set for the nearrest possum. The possum are illuminated by a sodium vapour street light. The clouds are illuminated by a bright moon.
This past year National Geographic asked me to document tall trees in Tasmania, Australia. It was a fantastic experience spending time in the giant eucalyptus forest with tall tree scientist Dr.Steve Sillett and other tree and forest experts. We climbed several 80 to 90 meter tall eucalyptus trees. I also had a chance to spend time in a protest tree with environmentalist Miranda Gibson. She spent a record 457 days in a tree platform 65 meters up in an Alpine ash.
The best moment during my 5 weeks in the forest was one morning watching the scientist in a 500 year old Eucalyptus regnans located in the Florentine Valley. The photo here is from that morning.
One of the things I've learned is that you can't be too prepared for an adventure shoot. I wrote about this and looked at how a photo disaster could have been saved with a little more prep. Here's the link to that article in Australian Geographic Outdoor magazine.
Melanie and I spent a lovely wet three days packrafting down the Colo River in NSW, Australia.
The trip was a bit of a gamble since we knew a cyclone was bearing down on NSW and bringing with it heavy rains. Melanie and I figured if we played our cards right we might get some initial higher water with the early rains that came before the main force of the storm hit the Colo basin. Yeah, right!
Well as it turns out we had a low water float for all three days and rain for two of those days. A few hours after we got off the Colo it spiked from .6 meters to 16 meters! It would have been some
When I had a chance to revisit the Franklin-Gordon Wild Rivers National Park in Tasmania I spent four days walking the trail from the Lyell Highway to Frenchmans Cap. The walk is rated a more difficult trail and the initial hardship filter is 6 kilometer slog through ankle to knee deep mud across the Loddon Plains. This photo is me in full Goretex rain gear on the mud walk section. Rain fell everyday on the trail.
From the sodden Lodden's you climb through extrodinary temperate rainforest around Lake Vera and Lake Tahune. Melanie and I arrived at the summit in a zero visibility cloud, but a 100 meters below the
Wilson's Promontory National Park is a few hours drive from Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. It's a place I have heard of and read about so when we were in the area recently I knew we had to stop by for a look. The wave worn granite we discovered in the park was an unexpected surprise. We spent half a day exploring the rocks, beaches and trails. On the next visit we'll plan a multi-day hike. Our favorite place on Wilson's Prom was the walk out to Sandy Point. Melanie had a camera as well and got some photos of me out photographing.
A massive fire, called the Wambelong fire, is currently burning out of control in and around the Warrumbungles National Park. I spent an amazing couple of weeks in the Park, as well as in the nearby community of Coonabarabran, shooting a story about the Park for this month's Australian Geographic magazine. My thoughts go out to all of those who have lost so much in this fire. Fortunately at this time there has been no human loss with the fire, but the loss in property, buildings, wildlife and livestock in and around the Park has been tremendous.
A recent photo assignment for Australian Geographic magazine sent me to Warrumbungles National Park in New South Wales, Australia to have a look around. Here's a link Here to the article and photos. Usually my skills with ropes, rock climbing and the like come into play as tools for access on most of my assignments, but when I was in the Warrumbungles, rock climbing and hikes were the story.
The shoot reminded me again how fortunate I am to visit these places and spend time with the incredible people who live, work and play in these parks. On this photo shoot, as with all of my photo assignments, I am in touch with and being assited by so many people. Their generous time and help makes these projects a success. Thanks to Warrumbungles Park Ranger Roger Row, in the picture below, and all of the other great people I met and climbed with in the Warrumbungles and showed me why this park is such an amazing place.
When people ask me why I climb I tell them it's because of the places rock climbing can take me. A recent adventure climbing the Moai in the Tasman National Park, Australia is a perfect example. This 35 meter sea stack off the coast of Tasmania has got a spectacular setting. There were three rappels to get to the base of the Moai Tower, with climbing to be done to get back out. Talk about committment!
The climb is rated 18, and is two pitches. But with the crashing waves,
howling wind, and isolated location, it is full value adventure.
A bed of flowers on the summit greets the climbers. What better way to top out on one of Tasmania's classic sea towers.
