Enormocast 294: Simon Carter – Climbing Through the Lens

[00:00:00] You are listening to the Enormocast.

[00:00:10] Anthropologists tell us that since the beginning of time, the hunt for three essential things has ruled primitive primates.

[00:00:16] Food, shelter, and bomber protection for thin cracks.

[00:00:22] Today, before dawn, we stashed a pile of black diamond Camelot Z4s at the base of the thin and fierce magic line to see what kind of species we could lure in.

[00:00:32] Now we wait.

[00:00:34] Oh my goodness. Our first taker is a beautiful Honolorectus. Just look at those lads.

[00:00:43] Honolorectus is known for foregoing protection altogether, but when in need, it goes for the lightweight versatility of the Camelot Z4 every time. Just magnificent.

[00:00:56] Wait, wait. What's this approaching the crack?

[00:00:58] Ah, an absolutely stunning female Hazelonymous Intrepidae.

[00:01:03] These awesome and fearless creatures choose the Black Diamond Z4 for its low profile and holding power.

[00:01:11] Well, our experiment today has once again proven that the Z4 from Black Diamond is the smooth action, low profile and lightweight small cam of choice for species of trad climbers all over the globe.

[00:01:23] So head to your local shop or blackdomandequipment.com to see these essential survival tools.

[00:01:29] And if you listen carefully, you may even hear the somber call of a Didier Bertode echo from the cliffs.

[00:01:48] Ten-hut.

[00:01:50] Alright, cans and bottles.

[00:01:51] Follow them.

[00:01:52] Barring any sort of unforeseen epic, forest pivy or extended chitchat in the parking lot, our climbers are due back to camp any minute.

[00:02:00] And since we've been nestled here in this Yeti tundra cooler, chilled and thrilled, we are poised to offer timely refreshment to these certainly knackered and thirsty climbers.

[00:02:10] As we know, whether they sent or got bent, stumbling back into camp after yet another best day ever and enjoying an ice cold libation from this here tundra cooler is one of the true pleasures in life.

[00:02:22] Are you cold drinks ready to do your part?

[00:02:25] I will.

[00:02:26] I don't wanna die.

[00:02:28] What was that, raspberrya?

[00:02:30] Uh, I don't want my can ripped open and my insides bored into someone's mouth, sir.

[00:02:35] Son, I understand your concern.

[00:02:37] But we've been putting this here Yeti tundra cooler for a singular honorable purpose.

[00:02:42] That is to give cool, refreshing comfort to our climbers.

[00:02:45] Should one wish to slake their thirst with your syrupy and artificially tainted insides, then it's a sacrifice you were born to make.

[00:02:52] Just consider yourselves lucky that you're inside this here Yeti tundra cooler.

[00:02:57] Any other ice box and we'd be warm and stale and likely dishonorably poured out after one sip.

[00:03:04] Yeti has always backed up their products with years of testing, re-engineering and upgrading to arrive at the majestic tundra cooler.

[00:03:12] In my sudsy opinion, every climber owes it to their provisions to go to Yeti.com or a reputable outdoor retailer and check out a tundra cooler.

[00:03:21] Stay cool with Yeti.

[00:03:25] Listen, uh, where are you playing in town?

[00:03:27] Are you playing here?

[00:03:28] We're doing the, uh, Enormo Dome, whatever it is.

[00:03:31] It's terrific.

[00:03:31] Oh yeah, big place outside of town.

[00:03:33] That's a big place.

[00:03:34] You sold it out.

[00:03:35] I'll see.

[00:03:36] We really should.

[00:03:38] What the hell are you doing?

[00:03:41] I couldn't sleep.

[00:03:43] I'm checking the roads.

[00:03:45] There was a freight end on Europe.

[00:03:47] And I'm cutting it out.

[00:04:00] Bad weather.

[00:04:00] Now or later, anytime.

[00:04:02] We'll find it.

[00:04:04] Today's show is brought to you by Black Timing Equipment, La Sportiva, and with support from Maxim Ropes.

[00:04:10] Maxim has been keeping the Enormo cast off the deck since 2012.

[00:04:15] And now we can also thank the chill folks at Yeti.

[00:04:18] And don't forget our charter sponsor, Bonfire Coffee.

[00:04:22] Go to bonfirecoffee.com and enter Enormo at checkout to get a great deal on great coffee and to support the Enormo cast.

[00:04:30] And now back to the show.

[00:04:42] Hello and welcome to the Enormo cast.

[00:04:44] This is your host, Chris Glews.

[00:04:45] It is October 10th, 2024.

[00:04:48] 7am here in Colorado.

[00:04:52] And this is episode 294 of the Enormo cast.

[00:04:56] A conversation with legendary Australian photographer, Simon Carter.

[00:05:03] Yes, 7am.

[00:05:04] A little early for me.

[00:05:05] I'm trying to beat my kids wake up, but it ain't gonna work because I just heard them banging around up there.

[00:05:10] So we'll see how long this lasts.

[00:05:12] Got the Bonfire Coffee on board.

[00:05:14] Formerly Defiant Bean.

[00:05:16] You old school listeners will remember that Defiant Bean was the very first sponsor here at the Enormo cast.

[00:05:21] My friend Jeff Hollenbaugh was like, that's cool.

[00:05:25] Why don't we do something?

[00:05:27] Then another friend, Charlie Chacos, bought it, renamed it Bonfire Coffee, which sounds like some sort of corporate takeover.

[00:05:35] But it was one local guy buying up the business of another local guy.

[00:05:40] Still small, still local here in Carbondale, but you can get it online, as you know, at bonfirecoffee.com.

[00:05:48] Enter Enormo at checkout.

[00:05:51] Another little piece of business that's coming up is that I am going to be up in Banff for the Banff Mountain Film Festival,

[00:05:58] doing a small little piece of that on Saturday, November 2nd from 10 to 11am at the Rab Stage Banff Center.

[00:06:08] I'll be hosting a talk with Barry Blanchard, who's never been on the show.

[00:06:13] Hopefully we're going to get that recorded and put it out.

[00:06:15] But if you are in the area or at the festival, please come by.

[00:06:22] 10am, Saturday, November 2nd.

[00:06:24] All that information is at BanffCenter.ca.

[00:06:29] It's a non-ticketed event, which means it's free.

[00:06:32] Come on by.

[00:06:34] Okay, well we should get to the interview, since my child is going to be coming through that door any minute now.

[00:06:41] This is an old school photography appreciation podcast.

[00:06:47] Simon Carter's been in the game for quite some time.

[00:06:50] He's got a new retrospective coffee table book out called The Art of Climbing, available where you get such things as that.

[00:06:58] I'll put a couple links where you can buy that thing in the show notes.

[00:07:02] But I'm sure you're capable of Googling such things as The Art of Climbing by Simon Carter.

[00:07:08] Hopefully we can accomplish something with this interview, aside from an admiration for the artistry of Simon, is the appreciation for climbing photography.

[00:07:19] One good thing about things like Instagram is that we get exposed to a great many more photographers, a great many more people producing cool art.

[00:07:30] However, I think it's hard to appreciate it in that format.

[00:07:35] I mean, I know that I've popped up Instagram, seen a photo that I thought was really cool, and then the feed refreshes and I basically have no idea where that photo went.

[00:07:46] Has that ever happened to you?

[00:07:47] Or I forget whose it was and I can't go back to that profile and find it later.

[00:07:52] It's just there and gone.

[00:07:54] And I think that can kind of break the wave of iconic photos sort of floating to the surface.

[00:08:00] And my generation and a generation maybe not too far after me as well kind of just had these iconic photographs, the poster photographs that stick with us and still reverberate today.

[00:08:14] I'm skeptical that that can happen anymore, frankly.

[00:08:17] Anyway, Simon was one of those guys that defined climbing photography.

[00:08:22] Started shooting in the late 80s, 90s, but kept at it all the way to this day.

[00:08:27] I'm sure you've seen some of his photographs and maybe you don't even know it.

[00:08:31] He has done a lot to basically make us salivate over Australian climbing over the years, but he's a worldwide photographer.

[00:08:40] And in a moment of synchronicity or if we're in a marketing boardroom synergy, can you feel it?

[00:08:49] The Art of Climbing has been selected by the judges in Banff as one of the finalists for the mountain image category.

[00:08:57] The Banff Mountain Book Competition is going on the same week I'm up there, so hopefully I'll run into Simon.

[00:09:04] This is a nice recognition for Simon's book, for Simon's career, all the things.

[00:09:09] So congratulations to Simon on that.

[00:09:12] And hey, if the Banff people loved it, maybe you will too.

[00:09:17] Oh, and we also talk about some thorny access issues in Australia as we speak.

[00:09:24] And the one thing that did for me was to appreciate the access fund, that we have the access fund here in the United States on the front line when closures rear their ugly head.

[00:09:35] So hopefully you guys support the access fund, your members.

[00:09:38] If you're not a member of the access fund, I don't even know what you're doing.

[00:09:43] If you climb outside, you've climbed at places that have been protected by the access fund.

[00:09:47] You've walked on trails that were built by them.

[00:09:50] You've probably clipped anchors that were also protected by them.

[00:09:53] So join, get the t-shirt, the lovely t-shirt.

[00:09:57] I have like piles of those t-shirts over the years.

[00:10:01] They last forever.

[00:10:02] They're wonderfully soft.

[00:10:04] And you know, they're a signifier for the community.

[00:10:06] I've been dragged to many functions like a dinner party or something where I'm like, what are we going to talk about?

[00:10:13] Golf?

[00:10:15] Where we work?

[00:10:16] Isn't that what you talk about with people that don't climb?

[00:10:18] It's like, hey, what do you do for a living?

[00:10:20] And then there's a moment where you kind of see this little glimpse of an access fund t-shirt peeking out from underneath a button down.

[00:10:28] Oh yeah, I'm talking to that person.

[00:10:31] You grab a cocktail, beeline straight to them and you say, hey man, do you listen to the Enorma cast?

[00:10:38] Did you hear that Simon Carter interview?

[00:10:40] Amazing, wasn't it?

[00:10:46] Yeah, Sportiva is losing its edge.

[00:10:49] Losing its edge.

[00:10:52] The mandala is losing its edge.

[00:10:55] No edge.

[00:10:56] No edge?

[00:10:56] More fun.

[00:10:58] The kids are wearing them in France and in London.

[00:11:03] I was there when Kinen Takahashi tried on the mandala for the first time.

[00:11:08] I said, man, that's a heck of a mustache.

[00:11:13] I've heard you have a closet full of every great shoe that Sportiva has ever made.

[00:11:18] Even a retro pair of megas.

[00:11:21] The future has no edge.

[00:11:23] I once used a Sportiva mandala to drink Baileys from a shoe while sitting under sleepwalker.

[00:11:28] Sending it before anyone else.

[00:11:31] After an all night rave in Las Vegas.

[00:11:34] I've never been wrong.

[00:11:36] I used to work in a climbing gym.

[00:11:38] Optimized performance.

[00:11:40] Facilitating fluidity.

[00:11:43] Minimal materials.

[00:11:45] Sticky coated toe box.

[00:11:48] Supreme crew up.

[00:11:50] New edge.

[00:11:51] More fun.

[00:11:54] You know, I haven't had, I want to say a lot of Australians.

[00:11:57] I don't even, I think I've only had one on the entire show, but.

[00:12:00] I know you've had Lee Kujis on.

[00:12:02] Yeah, Lee.

[00:12:03] That's my guy.

[00:12:04] Right?

[00:12:04] And I made Lee when he showed up basically represent all of Australia.

[00:12:10] And we did it.

[00:12:12] He did a nice job doing that actually.

[00:12:14] It's a hard thing to do to represent all of Australia, all of Australian climbing because

[00:12:18] it's quite diverse.

[00:12:19] And yeah.

[00:12:20] That's to say I'm going to put you on that same spot, Simon.

[00:12:23] Thanks for coming.

[00:12:24] I'm psyched to do this.

[00:12:25] It's on the occasion of a new book that you have out.

[00:12:30] And, but it's also on the occasion that it's a long time overdue, I think, for us to chat

[00:12:35] on this podcast.

[00:12:36] So I appreciate you showing up.

[00:12:37] Thanks for having me on the show, Chris.

[00:12:39] It's a real pleasure and honor to be here.

[00:12:41] So yeah, with that in mind, I kind of want to like, I kind of want to start at your climbing

[00:12:46] beginnings, if you will.

[00:12:48] I've got your book.

[00:12:50] I've, I read your introduction or the part where you talked about getting into photography

[00:12:54] and your beginnings as a climber.

[00:12:57] And the thing that caught my eye, and there's a great picture of you, a young kid basically

[00:13:02] holding a camera in Arapeles.

[00:13:04] Oh yeah.

[00:13:05] And I think I read that you, you sort of turned up there and like something like 87,

[00:13:09] I think was the year I read, but either way, the late eighties as a kid, basically.

[00:13:15] And I kind of want to, you know, you can correct those, those facts, but really I want you to

[00:13:20] kind of set the scene of that moment in time in Arapeles.

[00:13:25] And cause it's just, I mean, it's just legendary and you were there at a legendary time, or at

[00:13:30] least you started as a legend in a legendary time.

[00:13:32] I was just so lucky to be in that place at that time.

[00:13:37] I mean, if you want the, the quick sort of story, my background, that photo you're referring

[00:13:41] to in my book with me holding the camera, I think I was about 15.

[00:13:46] And I just, when I was 15, I just really got into photography.

[00:13:49] I just developed a love for it.

[00:13:53] I just really got into the medium of it.

[00:13:56] I built my own dark room in the, in the laundry at home.

[00:13:59] And I was just got into developing black and white photographs.

[00:14:03] And I also just started reading photography magazines.

[00:14:08] And I just thought photographers have the best job traveling the world, photographing, probably

[00:14:14] going to beautiful exotic islands and photographing models.

[00:14:19] As a 15 year old boy, I thought that sounded like a perfect job.

[00:14:23] But I, so I got into photography before I got into climbing, but by the time I was 17,

[00:14:27] I was just completely hooked on rock climbing.

[00:14:30] I'd always been into the outdoors with my mates doing really cool bush walks and different outdoorsy trips,

[00:14:35] caving.

[00:14:36] By the time I was 17, I got into climbing.

[00:14:38] I just became instantly hooked.

[00:14:39] And yeah, I mean, I've talked to Dean Fidelman several occasions at this point,

[00:14:45] including two great episodes here on the podcast.

[00:14:49] And I kind of saw some parallels in you guys's, you know, your start.

[00:14:55] He's older than you are, I believe.

[00:14:57] But, you know, this idea that you were passionate about both things, but then you sort of became,

[00:15:03] it seemed like you became the guy with the camera and, you know, also embedded, if you will.

[00:15:09] And, you know, so you were able to become a witness to, you know, this, these decades of Australian climbing in the,

[00:15:18] in the east, but also worldwide climbing.

[00:15:21] I think back then too, like you really had to be in the climbing scene to have a chance at photographing a lot of the really interesting

[00:15:29] and most spectacular stuff that was going on.

[00:15:31] So, you know, I had the passion of climbing and photography, but it was eight or 10 years before I managed to combine them professionally.

[00:15:37] But, you know, when I look back at some of my early photographs, it was, it was always there that I had the passion for it.

[00:15:45] And I just thought, okay, I want to become a photographer.

[00:15:47] And I, and so my first job out of school was, I got at the local university and I ended up working in the darkroom in a, some photography departments.

[00:15:56] And I ended up spending 80% of my time in this tiny little darkroom printing, like DNA gel smears and electron microscope photographs for the scientists for their reports.

[00:16:08] And, and after two years of this, it completely killed my passion and, and I completely gave up.

[00:16:13] And I felt at the time I just walked away from my lifelong dream of being a photographer.

[00:16:19] And it took about, you know, six or eight years.

[00:16:22] I went off and did different things.

[00:16:23] I went climbing.

[00:16:24] I did outdoor education with the idea of teaching kids, you know, outdoor stuff, outdoor activities to get them into the outdoors.

[00:16:32] And then I wasn't told I was a full-time climber living at Mount Arapalese as I got more and more into my climbing in the early 1990s.

[00:16:40] I ended up living in a tent for eight months at Arapalese because back then in the early nineties, that's what you did if you wanted to be a good climber.

[00:16:48] And that's just what I did.

[00:16:49] I set up my tent, lived in it for eight months and just climbed full time and just started taking photos of my friends on rest days.

[00:16:57] And it had always been there, but that was the catalyst.

[00:16:59] It was just like, Oh, my friends are doing these amazing things in these most spectacular places like Taipan wall in the Grampians.

[00:17:09] And I just, there's no one else around to document it.

[00:17:11] So it just felt natural to start doing it.

[00:17:14] But I, I, you know, for years I've wondered how to do it as a sustainable thing.

[00:17:18] Cause it's okay taking climbing photographs, but when you get serious about it and you need to generate income from it so you can keep doing it, it becomes a different thing.

[00:17:26] So that was the next challenge.

[00:17:29] But yeah, I got serious about it in 94.

[00:17:31] It was, I set up, set up my business.

[00:17:33] Yeah.

[00:17:33] I mean that the Arapalese thing, right?

[00:17:35] It's yeah.

[00:17:36] I kind of want to get into that, not just the photography part, but you know, this, this scene of, of setting yourself up there.

[00:17:42] I was actually, uh, I stopped by there in God, it must've been 1991, 92, like over the new year.

[00:17:51] Um, for a, for a couple of weeks, I happened to be over there in New Zealand.

[00:17:56] Um, and then, um, kind of on the way home, so to speak, I went over to Australia for awhile.

[00:18:02] And then I came back, I think a year or two later, um, and spent some serious time there.

[00:18:08] And, you know, I've said this on the podcast before, I think I talked to Lee about it is just how formative for me as a climber, those, that time in that place was as an international trip.

[00:18:21] And as just like, uh, like these jumper cables to what like climbing could be as this like bohemian slash, you know, philosophical slash spiritual lifestyle almost.

[00:18:35] And, um, yeah.

[00:18:36] So, you know, you were there at that time or a little bit before that as well, but can, can you just talk about that?

[00:18:42] I mean, it's, it's just so legendary and maybe that that's been a little bit flattened in modern times, but, um.

[00:18:48] Yeah.

[00:18:49] It was just such an exciting time to be a climber.

[00:18:52] I mean, that's what you did.

[00:18:53] If you wanted to be a climber, you went full time.

[00:18:55] You just lived in a tent and went climbing and the scene was just incredible.

[00:18:59] I think those times had a lot of impact on a lot of us actually.

[00:19:03] I mean, climbing was different back then.

[00:19:05] I mean, there were really were destinations, particular destinations in the world that you'd kind of travel around to, and you just keep meeting the same people.

[00:19:12] And the scene was just so cool.

[00:19:14] Um, it was smaller, but I was just so glad that I was around there.

[00:19:18] And I got to see climbing evolve over the next 30, 40 years.

[00:19:22] Well, it's kind of, uh, funny too, because I was one of those climbers who towed a camera around and there, there's kind of dividing line.

[00:19:30] Um, especially back then, you know, you either, you either did or you didn't.

[00:19:34] And, and it was to tow the camera around was kind of a, a pain in the butt.

[00:19:39] I mean, you had to run your, your film and you had to pay for it and you had to get it all dealt with.

[00:19:44] And, um, and so it seemed like every group had a, had a, you know, couple climbers that whether they were photographers or not, they were toting the camera.

[00:19:52] And I was a camera toter when I was there.

[00:19:55] And, um, to this day, like, you know, I'm not any sort of professional photography photographer, but like the images I captured there too, are some of the best I ever got.

[00:20:06] And, and I was kind of like thinking about you starting there.

[00:20:09] It was almost like cheating in a way.

[00:20:10] Like the place, it just, it just like begs to be photographed.

[00:20:15] The colors are astounding for a climbing area.

[00:20:19] You know, you can be across from things all the time was one thing I always noted was that the gullies angles on stuff.

[00:20:25] Yeah.

[00:20:25] That these angles that you just, without a, you know, in those days, some crazy stilt setup, you couldn't really get, you know, on a regular cliff.

[00:20:34] Yeah, that wouldn't really work at Arapalese.

[00:20:35] Yeah.

[00:20:36] But, um, I never thought Arapalese was an easy place to photograph, but yeah, you've got spectacular elements and then you've got the Grampians like an hour away with the beautiful orange walls and more sort of sheer cliffs there.

[00:20:49] Yeah.

[00:20:49] So you had a, between Arapalese and the Grampians, you just got this really great variety of, of climbs, really interesting climbs.

[00:20:56] Um, climbs are really cool character and amazing rock architecture.

[00:21:00] So yeah, you've got perfect stuff to play with and the light and the fields.

[00:21:04] Do you think there was something also about, um, your photographs that, um, shooting on film was a bit different?

[00:21:11] Because I've, when I look at a lot of my earlier Arapalese work, I just, I just wouldn't probably shoot it the same way now if it was on digital.

[00:21:18] But back then when you were shooting on film, you really had to work hard with the light and make sure that you kind of got a composition that was clean.

[00:21:27] Um, like now with digital cameras, you'd probably shoot in a lot softer light, but back then, um, because you had film, you just had to shoot in a different way.

[00:21:36] It usually had to be in sunlight and so it kind of forced you to do different compositions.

[00:21:42] Do you think?

[00:21:43] Yeah.

[00:21:43] I mean, you know, to the extent that I was, I was sort of thinking on those levels, I would totally agree with you, but one sort of kind of funnier logistical thing about my photography on that trip, because it included, um, you know, included the blue mountains as well.

[00:21:58] Um, and it was several months I was over there is that I had bought, you know, I was a, it was a true dirt bag trip and I had bought whatever, 12 rolls of Velvia maybe, you know, like, and I was, it was like $400 worth.

[00:22:15] Yeah.

[00:22:17] And I was like, it was like an investment.

[00:22:19] And so I just know that you, you tried to do your shot, you know, you took a photo or two of the thing that you were trying to shoot the picture of.

[00:22:28] And then you just hoped, you know, and you have, you, you know, you were, you were a craftsman and you knew, you know, something about what you were getting, but that was like a whole different ball game of like, let's shoot a few of these and then move on for me.

[00:22:43] And, uh, get home, literally get home months later and start popping those boxes open and pulling out those slides and, and throwing half of them away.

[00:22:53] Exciting times on the light box.

[00:22:54] Did I, did I nail it or did I stuff it up?

[00:22:57] Is the focus just a tiny bit off or something?

[00:23:01] Right, right.

[00:23:01] Yeah, no, it was an interesting challenge.

[00:23:03] You don't get that instant feedback, which yeah, it did make it very challenging.

[00:23:07] Um, and I kind of miss that a bit.

[00:23:10] It's just too easy now.

[00:23:12] Plus, you know, 20 frames a second autofocus and all that now.

[00:23:16] So yeah, it was a very interesting challenge.

[00:23:18] I'll tell you one thing there that did help me shooting film.

[00:23:21] I mean, there was two things that came from that.

[00:23:22] You know what I mean?

[00:23:23] The expense of shooting film, right?

[00:23:25] So when I was living in a tent full-time climber, I was ended up living off the dole, which is, you know, the government, um, unemployment benefits.

[00:23:34] And as a full-time climber, you, you took your government sponsorship money when you could get it, of course.

[00:23:40] So that helped finance the thing.

[00:23:43] So obviously spending money on film was super expensive.

[00:23:47] You had to make each shot count.

[00:23:48] But that eventually led to me thinking, well, I've got to make more money from my photographs if I'm going to keep shooting because it was just killing me.

[00:23:56] So you had to spend time sending photos over to the other side of the world, to America, to the big locations where you could actually get some semi-decent income from your photography so you could keep going.

[00:24:08] So that was one of the decisions I made.

[00:24:10] I said, well, I've got to get serious about this if I'm actually going to keep shooting.

[00:24:14] And the other thing about shooting film, which was, uh, interesting is I got kind of studied a bit of photography when, yeah, at high school, I've studied it.

[00:24:22] I did night school when I was working in the darkroom as well.

[00:24:25] I did a bit of photography and I came to learn the, um, you heard about the Ansell Adams zone system for photography, for metering.

[00:24:35] Bagly, yeah.

[00:24:36] So basically when you're metering the scene, um, he would use a spot meter and he'd poke the spot meter at different parts of the scene and he would decide which tone that, uh, gray shade of gray should fall in.

[00:24:49] So if it was bright, it should.

[00:24:51] Anyway, with using a spot meter, he could really accurately determine the exposure.

[00:24:56] Uh, and he could also change the contrast of it by how long he'd process the film for and stuff.

[00:25:02] But the basic principle of the zone system, um, was using a spot meter to really accurately meter your scenes.

[00:25:09] And I basically just use a spot meter in, in the camera on manual and basically did my own little version, a very quick, um, rough version of the zone system, uh, when I was photographing.

[00:25:23] And it made metering and getting exposures on slide film really accurate and really consistent.

[00:25:29] So that was one thing I had under control, um, with my photography.

[00:25:34] So it wasn't, I was really consistent with the exposures at least.

[00:25:38] It was a dollar frame, you know, to shoot slide film, Velvia.

[00:25:41] Yeah.

[00:25:41] Yeah.

[00:25:42] And plus, you know, again, you didn't see it until it came back and you weren't, I don't think you were processing your, your slide film in Natamuk anywhere either.

[00:25:51] So this, the processing came later when you went back to civilization probably.

[00:25:56] So imagine how I felt that time.

[00:25:57] I, I got a, um, an assignment with the North Face to photograph Lynn Hill and Nancy Fagan.

[00:26:03] And we went down to the totem pole in Tasmania just a few years after the first free ascent of the totem pole.

[00:26:10] And I shot about 30 rolls of Velvia of Lynn and Nancy.

[00:26:14] And I was very careful to batch my films and I'd never send the entire batch to a lab at the one time, you know, it could, could get lost in the post or something.

[00:26:25] So I batched, sent half my films from the totem pole to the lab.

[00:26:29] And I got a call from the lab that they'd had a major malfunction in their processing.

[00:26:34] The wheels had stopped turning.

[00:26:36] So the film sat in the developer and got cooked in the developer and they trashed nearly half of my films of Lynn on the totem pole.

[00:26:46] And I was just in tears.

[00:26:47] I was devastated.

[00:26:49] And, uh, fortunately I'd not given them all my films and it was really good shots on the remaining films I'd save.

[00:26:57] But yeah, shooting film was risky, but it's, I guess like now you lose a memory card of data somehow, but that's never happened to me.

[00:27:07] Yeah.

[00:27:07] Yeah.

[00:27:08] I think it's a little easier to, to back things up almost immediately.

[00:27:11] A lot easier.

[00:27:12] Cameras even do it.

[00:27:13] Um, you know, some cameras even do it for you.

[00:27:15] So, um, but yeah, let me, let me ask you a little, I want to hang out on the rap police.

[00:27:21] Um, I mean, it's figured, you know, I think really largely in your photography because like you, you send those, those shots out or you put those in front of people, climbers, sorry.

[00:27:32] You put those in front of climbers who have never been there.

[00:27:35] And I mean, it's indelible, right?

[00:27:38] It, it's, it's just, you know, the, the flat planes, you know, the classic kachung shot and just the, the, the planes running away from the cliff and the colors and everything else.

[00:27:48] So, um, you know, it's a very distinctive Australian thing and an, and an Australian export are those, are those photographs and, and the Grampians, you know, kind of lumped together and, and, um, really shocking.

[00:27:59] But the other thing that's, I mean, the subjects, you know, um, the, the people that you were shooting, um, kind of stand out as well.

[00:28:07] I think again, the Taipan and Malcolm Matheson, HB, um, are such a part of it too.

[00:28:15] So tell me a little bit about these people and, and what they were like to shoot, what they were like to hang out with, how they inspired you as a photographer.

[00:28:22] Uh, some of the people from that era and, and those, those times.

[00:28:27] Yeah.

[00:28:27] So we're talking like 1991, 92, I think, cause I, uh, I went and studied outdoor education, a degree course in there to Bendigo, which is about two hours from the Grampians.

[00:28:41] I did that for three years, 88, 89, 90.

[00:28:45] So I started doing trips over to Arapalese and the Grampians from there.

[00:28:48] And that's how I sort of met, um, guys like HB, Malcolm Matheson and Andy Pollitt.

[00:28:53] I was just doing regular trips to Arapalese and hanging out, climbing every chance I got.

[00:29:00] So I just got to know them.

[00:29:01] And, but, you know, I was just, uh, I was getting into my climbing.

[00:29:06] I was getting pretty good, pretty keen, but these guys were the absolute legends.

[00:29:09] And Andy Pollitt was one of my first international legends I got to know.

[00:29:14] And they're just super encouraging.

[00:29:16] And I don't know, it was just cool to be a part of them and the scene at the time.

[00:29:21] Um, lots of people like yourself and others coming through Arapalese.

[00:29:26] So yeah, I just got into it.

[00:29:27] And I was actually living in Canberra, working in an outdoor shop and I just did more and more trips to Arapalese.

[00:29:33] Yeah.

[00:29:33] Like I said, I ended up going full time, living in a tent there and just becoming part of the scene myself.

[00:29:40] Yeah.

[00:29:40] So let's move then to, you know, that, that evolution of, of the, the becoming sort of the professional guy, the guy that's going to start paying his bills with, with photography.

[00:29:51] Oftentimes in that story, it takes a few key either moments or especially like a lot of times people, you know, someone, someone with the power to, to buy your photographs, you know, really going hard on what you're doing.

[00:30:06] Was there, what was that like?

[00:30:08] Was it a creeping thing?

[00:30:10] Did you get some really interesting things happen all at once?

[00:30:13] Um, how did the professional thing start to happen?

[00:30:16] Okay.

[00:30:16] So it's probably worth telling a little bit of the story because, um, the story ends up being just one thing led to another, but where it started was, you know, in that tent at Mount Arapalese when I was just living as a full-time climber.

[00:30:32] And I made that decision that I wanted to give it a crack at turning professional, whatever that was, but I wanted to make money from my photography so I could keep doing it and start traveling more and more.

[00:30:44] Meet the models.

[00:30:45] There were, there were the models that you were supposed to meet as well as part of your original dream.

[00:30:49] Yeah.

[00:30:50] So I think I gave up on that, but I found climbing models.

[00:30:54] It's just dudes.

[00:30:55] Kind of cool in many ways.

[00:30:57] Right.

[00:30:57] It was like a bunch of dudes and Louise Shepard were like your, your, your subjects in, uh, in Arapalese.

[00:31:04] So I ended up shooting models.

[00:31:06] They're just different.

[00:31:07] Um, so what, you know, you said there's sometimes one person and there was a guy who was living in Natamuxa, you know, Natamuxa town right next to Mount Arapalese and Horsham there.

[00:31:21] And, uh, because I was living on the dole, like, um, the government unemployment benefit as a full-time climber, the government had this scheme to get people off the dole, which basically involved doing a small business course for six weeks.

[00:31:35] And in that time you'd do a business plan.

[00:31:38] And if they approve your plan, they would pay you the equivalent of the dole free year.

[00:31:43] It was called the new enterprise incentive scheme.

[00:31:46] And so this, this mate of mine in town who ran the scheme, he said, come and, come and do it.

[00:31:51] You know, try and give it a crack with your climbing photography.

[00:31:54] And so I did.

[00:31:55] And during, doing that six week business course, I, you know, I did my business plan and I did all this market research and I came up with all these ideas.

[00:32:03] And one of the ideas was to publish a calendar, a climbing calendar.

[00:32:07] And I figured that out and into my business plan.

[00:32:11] And, and so, yeah, I set up my business.

[00:32:13] I bought a fax machine.

[00:32:14] I registered the business name and I started and I, and I traveled around Australia for three months taking photographs at all these different climbing areas.

[00:32:22] And then I published my first climbing calendar, the Australian climbing calendar, 1995.

[00:32:27] And it did much better than I'd expected.

[00:32:29] And that kept me going for the first year and the second year.

[00:32:34] And then third year I was selling like 8,000 copies of that around Australia.

[00:32:39] And then, you know, I was just, one day I got a phone call from a publisher who were looking for a photograph that I couldn't supply them with.

[00:32:46] And we got talking and they wanted to do a book on rock climbing.

[00:32:50] And I said, oh, that's cool.

[00:32:51] I want to do a book on rock climbing in Australia.

[00:32:54] And, you know, within 10 months we had my first Australian coffee table book completed.

[00:32:59] So that ended up sort of being the story of my life or my career is one thing led to another.

[00:33:04] That book led to something else, to something else, to something else.

[00:33:06] And in 2000 it led to an invitation by Rock and Ice magazine to come and photograph in America.

[00:33:13] And that kicked off my overseas traveling international photography.

[00:33:18] Yeah, that's awesome.

[00:33:19] I mean, it's, it's like, yeah, one thing led to another, but you sounds like you made these opportunities.

[00:33:24] And also, I mean, then there's just the talent and the, and the fact that you had this catalog, you know, waiting to be sort of explored by these publishers and by these people that, that wanted to, wanted to see stuff.

[00:33:37] So it's like, you know, it wasn't overnight and it was like just building this whole, whole catalog.

[00:33:42] It wasn't overnight.

[00:33:43] And I've thought about this a lot over the years and I've thought about it a lot recently, like putting this last book together,

[00:33:52] which is like the best of my life's work.

[00:33:54] And I was just like, yeah, I, I'm kind of, I feel kind of emotional about it, but I had a vision early on and I just stuck with it because I just loved photographing climbing.

[00:34:06] And I could have got distracted into photographing all sorts of other things or into more filmmaking and stuff, but I just stuck with it.

[00:34:15] I had that thing that I loved and I just wanted to photograph it in my way and just consistently plot away with that.

[00:34:23] And, and so I kind of didn't let myself get distracted in some ways.

[00:34:28] But in the end, over the years, just plotting away with this sort of single-minded, I don't like to call it vision, but there was, there was some vision in it, but it was just a passion thing as well.

[00:34:38] But by plotting away at something over the years, it's, it kind of built up and it became more, I feel like it became more than just a collection of what it, the individual photographs.

[00:34:50] It was, do you know what I mean?

[00:34:52] I'm probably rambling now, but like as a photographer, I feel there's something to be said for what your life's work is going to look like at the end of it, your body of work.

[00:35:02] That to me as a photographer was always an important thing because you might remember back earlier, I said I was working in a darkroom and I just, I just realized being a photographer in itself wasn't the goal.

[00:35:15] If you're a photographer, I think you should have something to say.

[00:35:18] The photographers have really inspired me.

[00:35:20] He had seemed to have more of a vision about what they were photographing or what they were trying to say.

[00:35:25] And so I felt I needed that passion and I found that passion in climbing and I felt I wanted to say stuff about climbing and I can have a quick stab at what that is, but.

[00:35:37] Yeah, I was about to ask you, what do you think that was?

[00:35:41] Well, climbing is just a, those things we're talking about, just a wonderful, wonderful activity.

[00:35:48] You know, it's a part of us, those of us who are climbers, it's our lifestyle, it's our lives, the places, the people, the activity, the, you know, it's just so beautiful, but it's also so misunderstood.

[00:36:02] And, you know, 30 years ago, I think one of the concerns was that climbing would be misunderstood and it might get banned because, you know, authorities would say, oh, it's too dangerous and step in.

[00:36:15] And 30 years later, we found, you know, rapidly isn't the grampians.

[00:36:19] Climbing is getting banned for other reasons that we didn't see coming.

[00:36:23] So I've always felt climbing needed to be portrayed positively because we're always a little in danger of being misunderstood as a recreation.

[00:36:35] So I thought there was a need for some sort of big picture positive publicity so that when climbing got publicity, it wasn't just because someone had had an accident, which was, back then, that was the only time really climbing got good publicity outside of the climbing community.

[00:36:51] In the mainstream, it was only usually when there was accidents.

[00:36:55] So there was that.

[00:36:56] I wanted to see that climbing was portrayed positively.

[00:37:00] And having spent 10 years as a climber before I tried to get serious also helped quite a lot from a practical perspective, knowing people and just knowing how to work on a cliff.

[00:37:10] I mean, you just mentioned about sort of a philosophy, the word vision, you know, which leads me to the question about sort of an artistic idea.

[00:37:20] Yeah.

[00:37:20] I've known a ton of photographers.

[00:37:22] I mean, I was just going to kind of show you it, but it's all too heavy to pick it up.

[00:37:26] You know, I've got all the books, you know, I've got Jim Thornburg's book and I got, you know, all the books.

[00:37:33] That is the best climbing book.

[00:37:35] Yeah.

[00:37:36] It's unwieldy though.

[00:37:37] It's my only complaint.

[00:37:39] Good on him for going big.

[00:37:42] Jim is one of the best climbing photographers in the world.

[00:37:45] You know, and I've known these people and there's all different approaches.

[00:37:49] And some like Dean is, you know, it's, it's this very thought out artistic idea coming at it from a different way.

[00:37:57] There's very, there's very sort of work oriented guys.

[00:38:00] I mean, I think Corey Rich, you know, he's, you know, he's obviously I'm not going to downplay his artistry.

[00:38:07] But, you know, his early years was this, you know, guy just putting the work in and getting shots and, and, and kind of like going at it sort of almost blue collar in a way.

[00:38:15] So what, what, what are kind of your, you know, visions that you, that you now can, you know, looking back on a body work, which, which is, I think something I talked to Dean about with his book.

[00:38:27] Like, is it, it makes you kind of realize in some ways, like what I was up to, which I may not have known, or it was intuitive at the time.

[00:38:36] And so it wasn't something that I had in the forefront of my mind.

[00:38:39] But now I look back and here's what I was up to.

[00:38:42] So can you, can you put any, any of that sort of artistic vision or, or what those kinds of things that come out in your work now that you look back on it into words?

[00:38:53] Yeah. And, and like Dean's book, Body of Work, I mean, it's, it's literally, he's nailed it.

[00:39:00] The, the concept of having a body of work of photography and he's obviously for decades pursued a vision that he had.

[00:39:08] And that's what I'm saying. I don't, you know, a lot of climbing photographers kind of seem to get into it, but give up after a few years.

[00:39:15] It's sort of, I think a lot of people realize it's a hard thing to make a living out of and to sustain.

[00:39:21] And some people just give up, but other, others go on and do really cool things with filmmaking and, and different stuff.

[00:39:28] And it's like, it's the climbing photographers being a stepping stone to bigger or for them more interesting projects.

[00:39:38] So obviously with, with Dean, he's stuck to his vision.

[00:39:42] And for me, the vision, what I realized, okay.

[00:39:44] So I started photographing climbing sort of out of the passion, documenting my friends, what they were doing.

[00:39:50] But as I was photographing over the years, I realized that if you just photograph climbing, after a while, your photos are going to look quite samey, you know, climber on the rock.

[00:40:04] If you just go out and document it, just do the best you can.

[00:40:09] You're just going to doc, you're basically documenting climbing.

[00:40:12] And so I kind of realized it's kind of a spectrum in climbing photography.

[00:40:16] On the one end, you've got really just documentary work.

[00:40:20] You go out, you do the best you can of that situation.

[00:40:23] You might try and make it artistic or have a vision, but you're just, you're basically documenting.

[00:40:27] And then at the other end of the spectrum, you've got the more sort of conceptualized shots.

[00:40:33] You know, that's obviously what Dean is doing with his nudes.

[00:40:35] And so what I did is I realized that your shots would end up being very samey unless you figured out what it is that's unique or different about a scene or a situation.

[00:40:46] And tried to emphasize that.

[00:40:48] So when you photograph something, it might be the climber that's unique or different.

[00:40:53] It might be their personality, their character, the action.

[00:40:57] I mean, you're always trying to capture action, but it might be more about the climber, but there might be something special or unique about the setting, like the landscape, the scene, the scenery that it's in.

[00:41:09] So you might try and bring that more into the scene.

[00:41:12] And usually it's something in rock climbing, it's something about the rock architecture that you're climbing, the climb.

[00:41:19] And the really cool climbs, of course, have really amazing rock architecture.

[00:41:23] So I try and identify what it is about the situation that's unique.

[00:41:28] It's the climber, the setting, the rock architecture.

[00:41:31] And once you identify what's unique or special about that particular situation or potentially unique about it.

[00:41:39] And what I realized as I was doing this over time is I had a sort of kind of a variety in my shots.

[00:41:45] And then this actually leads to my latest book because my first four books were kind of destination books where the focus would be on the area.

[00:41:55] And I think a lot of climbing books are like that.

[00:41:57] We like to focus on different places we like to go to.

[00:42:01] But for this last book, when I was looking at my body of work, I was like, well, my body of work is not just about places to go.

[00:42:07] It shouldn't be a chronology.

[00:42:09] It's not about me or my photography.

[00:42:11] It's about what that work stands for.

[00:42:13] Well, when it came down to what was there in my work, because I'd been photographing the uniqueness of all these situations,

[00:42:22] when we looked at it and started looking at the rock architecture, the shots where the climber were the focus,

[00:42:29] the shots where the scenery or the setting were more of the emphasis.

[00:42:34] I just sort of started seeing all these themes of artistry.

[00:42:37] It led to the development of the themes of the chapters in the book where we have themes about lines, arets, overhangs, walls, like that.

[00:42:47] And then there's themes which are more about the climber, the action, the focus, much more about the climber and what's going on there, the intensity.

[00:42:56] And then there's a couple of chapters which are more about the landscape, the environment and the aquatic chapter where the ocean plays a role.

[00:43:04] So it's just a different way of looking at climbing, which sort of evolved out of my work when we came down to looking at my body of work.

[00:43:11] And I just thought it was so cool.

[00:43:13] To me, it was like, aha, I'd been shooting, looking for the uniqueness in the situation.

[00:43:18] There really were some strong sort of artistic and visual sort of threads that ran through the work.

[00:43:27] And when we identified what they were and started bringing those chapters together, it was just like, oh, wow, it was just so cool.

[00:43:35] And I went, yeah, that's what I want my body of work to stand for is the essence of what it is that inspires us as rock climbers.

[00:43:43] Like those climbs that you just get so passionate about that you dedicate your training, your travel, your dreams to, you know, those roots that you do in your life that just stick with you forever.

[00:43:57] Because there's something magical about them.

[00:44:00] Totally.

[00:44:01] And just to kind of, you know, people haven't seen the book and it's divided into these ideas.

[00:44:09] Some have to do, like you said, intensity is one, flow, you know, what the climber's doing.

[00:44:14] And there's an essay to go with each one from different climbers.

[00:44:18] And that's kind of the layout, which is, you know, all these decisions that you were just saying we were making.

[00:44:24] So who were you trusting necessarily to help you make these choices?

[00:44:31] Because, you know, again, one thing Dean talked about was just, yeah, he was overwhelmed when he finally got out everything.

[00:44:39] And it was very difficult for him.

[00:44:41] And it was also very difficult for him to allow someone else, you know, his publisher to chop these things.

[00:44:48] But it was necessary or else the book would have been, you know, six volumes and it's already big enough and expensive enough.

[00:44:53] So, you know, who's the we in the building of this book that I think, you know, other than your, different than your other books is that this is everything, you know?

[00:45:04] So, yeah, it's cool that you can see the difference too.

[00:45:07] So it's the editors that I was working with at the publishers and the publishers with Dames and Hudson.

[00:45:12] And they are the largest publishers of illustrated books in the world.

[00:45:16] And they were always the publisher I wanted to work with to do a book like this.

[00:45:23] And the story of how it came about in the end is very funny in a way, but very lucky and it nearly never happened.

[00:45:30] But, you know, I ended up working with them and I ended up working with some great editors who really pushed me.

[00:45:37] Because, yeah, my previous three books I'd self-published.

[00:45:40] And like I said, they were kind of formatted around destinations, locations.

[00:45:46] And that's how quite often climbing photography books are split up.

[00:45:51] And like I said, I just didn't want my life's work just to be boiled down into just another destination book.

[00:45:57] And so one of the first things I suggested to the publishers is, well, let's make it a chronology.

[00:46:03] Like it's all about me.

[00:46:05] It's my work.

[00:46:06] So let's lay out a chronology of all my work.

[00:46:10] And then we, you know, I kind of see it's just not about me.

[00:46:13] And I realized that's not going to explain any higher level thing there might be in my work.

[00:46:21] It's just making the focus about me and that's not what I wanted.

[00:46:24] I don't think it would have been that interesting.

[00:46:27] It's kind of like a brag sheet.

[00:46:28] Hey, look, I've managed to make a career as an outdoor photographer for many years.

[00:46:33] But so what?

[00:46:34] What does your work stand for?

[00:46:35] Why did you go to all that effort traveling all over the world to photograph all these climbers?

[00:46:41] It's a lot of work.

[00:46:42] I mean, it is.

[00:46:45] And, you know, this is not without its risks over the years when you keep doing it.

[00:46:49] So why?

[00:46:50] It's got to stand for something more.

[00:46:52] So I didn't want the book to be some sort of self-indulgent thing like that.

[00:46:56] The publishers suggested things like, well, why don't we split it up by looking at different rock type?

[00:47:02] That was a good idea.

[00:47:03] Like we could have a chapter on sand, chapter on granite.

[00:47:08] That'd be big chapters and limestone.

[00:47:11] But then the chapter on dolerite would be very small.

[00:47:15] That obviously didn't work.

[00:47:16] And the shift.

[00:47:17] The shift gets a page.

[00:47:19] The shift.

[00:47:20] The shift.

[00:47:22] And then, yeah, so I thought about, well, what about style of climbing?

[00:47:26] We could split it up.

[00:47:28] You know, we could have trad, sport, big wall and bouldering.

[00:47:31] And so forth.

[00:47:33] Different styles.

[00:47:34] But when you think about it as a climber, is that really what drives us as a climber?

[00:47:39] The style of climbing?

[00:47:39] We all have our preferences.

[00:47:41] You know, I prefer sport climbing and really nice quality sport routes.

[00:47:46] But the routes that inspired me in my life as a climber, the routes like serpentine blasting right up the middle of Taipan Wall.

[00:47:54] Or the free route on the totem pole.

[00:47:56] Well, they're the things that really inspire you to travel and get psyched and passionate.

[00:48:01] I mean, most climbs you'd climb are fun.

[00:48:04] That's what I thought.

[00:48:05] They're the routes that inspired me.

[00:48:07] There's something special about them.

[00:48:09] And that's what I wanted to try and bring out in this book, in this body of work, and the way we split it up.

[00:48:17] And I hope I found it.

[00:48:19] Do you think I found it?

[00:48:21] Yeah.

[00:48:21] No, it's amazing.

[00:48:22] It's so amazing.

[00:48:25] I mean, from the cover in, you know, I loved your cover shot.

[00:48:29] I think the sort of framing there and the way it sits as the cover of a book is super cool.

[00:48:36] And it goes on from there.

[00:48:37] But, you know, when you're looking at your photographs, you are also remembering times, people, places.

[00:48:46] You know, and you were saying how you don't want to make it about yourself, but, you know, these photographs tell these stories to you that are probably very different than they tell to someone like myself who wasn't there at the time.

[00:48:59] Like, when you're choosing these things, were there people, you know, times, even if it was private to you that you wanted represented in the book, maybe for your own private desires of like, that was a time.

[00:49:13] And I want a photograph from that.

[00:49:16] Oh, that's cool.

[00:49:16] I love that question.

[00:49:17] And from that person.

[00:49:18] I mean, you mentioned Andy Pollitt, you know, who passed away not too long ago.

[00:49:24] You know, like there is some memorializing in your photographs, unfortunately, you know, in that way.

[00:49:30] So was there thoughts in your head about that?

[00:49:33] Or were you just like, I'm objectively looking at these shots as what they are artistically?

[00:49:39] Oh, there's always a little personal emotion that's attached to certain shots, whether it's because of the effort you went through to get it or because of the connection you have with the person that's in it.

[00:49:56] So you went through to experience it.

[00:50:00] So yeah, it's tossing up and, you know, deciding what to leave out is really hard.

[00:50:05] Like, it's really hard when I had to leave out a photo of somebody that I would really love to have had represented in the book.

[00:50:12] And we had a great photo.

[00:50:14] We'd put so much work into.

[00:50:17] And then there was just no reason for it to be in the book in the end.

[00:50:21] So it just didn't fit for some reason.

[00:50:25] So yeah, it was really hard.

[00:50:26] But obviously I tried to get as many different people into the book as I could.

[00:50:30] And that's something I'm really proud of because over the years I tried to work with as many different climbers as I could.

[00:50:39] I didn't want my book or my life's work to just be about one climber or just a couple of climbers.

[00:50:45] So I always tried to travel around and work with different people, locals.

[00:50:50] So I think I got like over 200 different climbers in the book.

[00:50:54] Very sad when I had to leave someone out that I'd love to have had in there.

[00:50:57] And yeah, a lot of it did come down to choosing photos which demonstrated the themes in the book.

[00:51:04] So yeah, it was hard.

[00:51:04] But it's quite a process.

[00:51:06] And it's kind of fun and sad at the same time putting your life's work together and going, okay, this is it.

[00:51:13] I mean, there could be another book.

[00:51:15] But I just can't imagine how I'm going to really improve on that much.

[00:51:19] I mean, a few things at the edges.

[00:51:21] I could tweak a couple of photos.

[00:51:22] I could spend five years trying to improve on and tweak out and swap out and make a little bit better.

[00:51:29] But this is it.

[00:51:31] So if I die tomorrow, that's cool.

[00:51:34] That's it.

[00:51:34] My life's work's done.

[00:51:36] And I'd be very happy to have this book to be how I'm remembered.

[00:51:40] So yeah, it's kind of cool.

[00:51:42] Photography is cool because you get to do that with your work if you're lucky and leave something behind.

[00:51:48] And I hope someone picks up my book one day and gets inspired by it in a way that's really positive and does something really positive for climbing or for the world.

[00:51:58] You never know.

[00:51:59] What could you say about what it's like to work with you?

[00:52:06] In your opinion, I could go ahead and ask some other people.

[00:52:09] But clearly, when you just said there's 200 people in this book, you had to leave a lot of people out.

[00:52:15] Climbers are willing to work with you, are willing to go out of their way to have you shoot them.

[00:52:22] And the thing about it is there's this very great photograph is very candid looking.

[00:52:29] But even in the book, you talk about how like, well, a lot of times we're shooting at dawn or dusk.

[00:52:34] So, you know, a climber who you're going to shoot has to get up early.

[00:52:38] And if they're not that kind of person, it's like I've done it.

[00:52:40] I've been there.

[00:52:41] I've been shot where I had to get up pre-dawn, you know, to get out and get on the climb and get ready to be photographed.

[00:52:47] So what do you think you do to make, you know, just to make the whole scene work?

[00:52:53] How do you kind of think about that?

[00:52:56] I mean, I've been in the game for 30 years.

[00:52:58] So I've traveled a lot and worked with a lot of different people.

[00:53:01] So it just, it varies.

[00:53:03] The situation varies so much.

[00:53:04] I mean, you get to know people and people know that I'm serious about my photography.

[00:53:10] Not everyone's going to work with me, of course.

[00:53:13] It can be work.

[00:53:14] It can be just me tagging along and documenting.

[00:53:17] Or it can be, yeah, those dawn shoots, some more conceptualized shots where we can put in a lot of work sometimes to get something or not get something because it doesn't always work out.

[00:53:29] But, yeah, I think there's certainly people who understand what I'm trying to do enough that they support what I'm doing and love to help be part of that creative process.

[00:53:43] I mean, personally, as a climber, I would love to have someone create a really cool shot of me climbing, doing what I love to document this thing that I've dedicated my life to.

[00:53:55] So, I mean, it's cool.

[00:53:56] So if someone could take a good photo, I'd be supportive of that.

[00:54:00] So I think that's the way it is for a lot of climbers.

[00:54:03] And it just depends on the situation you're traveling.

[00:54:05] Sometimes you turn up to a climbing area.

[00:54:08] You might have a week and have to try and nail some good photographs.

[00:54:13] You might know some people.

[00:54:14] You might meet some people.

[00:54:16] Situations are so varied over the years.

[00:54:18] It's hard to say.

[00:54:19] Yeah, it's funny you just said that because I've never seen a picture of you climbing in my life.

[00:54:26] So, you know, the bane of the photographer is never being photographed.

[00:54:32] No one asking you to do it.

[00:54:33] But has it happened?

[00:54:34] Is it out there?

[00:54:35] Are there some, like, incredibly framed shots by a fellow photographer that we could find?

[00:54:41] I've got a couple.

[00:54:42] Tom Carter sending.

[00:54:43] Yeah, I've got a couple.

[00:54:44] I haven't got many.

[00:54:45] I wish I had a lot more for sure.

[00:54:46] Or I've had reason to dig through some of my early slides recently and scan some stuff in.

[00:54:51] But, yeah, Glenn Tempest got a couple of good ones early.

[00:54:54] But, yeah, anyway, it's not about me.

[00:54:56] So, I mean, I do have something to say about that kind of – I just – you know, I'm 58.

[00:55:01] And I've seen it from pre-internet, pre-social media into what's happened in climbing.

[00:55:08] And now just all the hype on social media.

[00:55:11] And it's kind of a weird scene.

[00:55:13] And I just – I find it a bit hard to, like, fully embrace all that that you see on social media where it's all about me, all about me, and climbers doing it.

[00:55:22] But you also see climbing photographers doing it.

[00:55:24] And I'm just like, man, it shouldn't be about you.

[00:55:27] It's about the people you're photographing and whether there's a message or stuff.

[00:55:31] But, yeah, I guess it's just the nature of social media.

[00:55:36] It makes people be very self-indulgent and make it about them.

[00:55:40] I mean, that's what a lot of people want to see, I guess.

[00:55:43] But as an older kind of generation, I find it really – it doesn't feel natural to be sort of making it all about you.

[00:55:53] As an aside, were you a guy who resisted digital?

[00:55:58] Oh, yeah.

[00:55:59] I think I was one of the last serious climbing photographers in the world to swap to digital.

[00:56:05] And it held up until 2008.

[00:56:08] You and Dean.

[00:56:09] Dean beat you.

[00:56:10] But anyway.

[00:56:11] Yeah, no, he probably held out longer, actually.

[00:56:13] Because in 2008, I got my first Nikon D3 and I did my first couple of trips carrying film and digital cameras and swapping the camera bodies out, trying to shoot both.

[00:56:27] And in the end, I just went, oh, man, you just can't beat that resolution now.

[00:56:33] It did take some years before I think the color improved.

[00:56:38] Now, the color's a lot better and with software and stuff.

[00:56:41] But there's still something missing in that color palette, that's for sure.

[00:56:45] So – and you can kind of see it in my book.

[00:56:48] You probably can't just look at every photo and say, oh, that was digital or that was slide.

[00:56:53] But it's – there's a real mixture of both.

[00:56:55] So you can kind of see some shots of film.

[00:56:59] And there's some shots in that book that only would have worked on film.

[00:57:02] And then there's other shots that only would have worked as well as they did on digital.

[00:57:06] So, yeah, it's kind of got the spectrum.

[00:57:09] And I'm certainly not resistant now to the digital because it's so much better in many respects and convenience and quality.

[00:57:17] But, yeah, for Dean, what he's doing with his artistry, then totally is awesome.

[00:57:22] And I respect anyone who can shoot on film.

[00:57:24] It was just a couple years ago, frankly, if you – like that – I think Renan Ozturk gave him an old body of his.

[00:57:33] And I honestly want to say it was like in the last five or six years.

[00:57:36] So although he's not shooting, you know, he's not shooting really what we're talking about as far as like action climbing as much as sort of a set thing that he can set up.

[00:57:47] But I think it's – yeah, you're right.

[00:57:49] I mean, Dean's got a particular artistic vision of climbing and it's not like climbing action documentary style stuff.

[00:57:58] So he's quite – isn't the very artistic sort of end of the spectrum?

[00:58:02] More like a fashion photographer in some ways, which is part of the background.

[00:58:05] No, he's an artist more.

[00:58:06] Yeah.

[00:58:07] He's really – he's now the art end of climbing photography.

[00:58:10] And if you want a little side story, for me, it's quite different.

[00:58:17] It's almost opposite.

[00:58:19] As I mentioned earlier in my background, I was working in a darkroom and I did one year of night school photography while I was doing that.

[00:58:28] And the students who did really well in their final portfolio were these portfolios where they had – they submitted 12 photographs of nudes on rocky beaches or kind of contrived studio photographs, portraits and stuff in the studio.

[00:58:46] And they were the kind of photographs the lecturers loved.

[00:58:51] And I handed in a portfolio of 12 rock climbing photographs.

[00:58:56] So, you know, I'm a year or two out of high school.

[00:58:58] I'm doing night school.

[00:59:00] I handed my 12 climbing photographs, which I went to a lot of effort to take and I failed my final portfolio.

[00:59:11] Well, fuck you.

[00:59:13] This was a formative moment in my life because I failed.

[00:59:16] And the ones that did really well were the nudes on rocky beaches and the portraits in the studios.

[00:59:21] And I was so pissed because in my mind I went, there's nothing original in that.

[00:59:28] Like it's just so obviously if you want to do something artistic, you go and do a nude on a rocky beach.

[00:59:33] And to me that was just – it was so blatant trying to be artistic.

[00:59:38] It was forced.

[00:59:40] And this was one of the things that actually turned me off trying to be a photographer at all costs because I kind of thought this is wrong.

[00:59:48] It felt too contrived.

[00:59:50] And I'm not saying what Dean is doing is contrived at all.

[00:59:54] In fact, completely the opposite.

[00:59:55] He has found his vision and he's going for it.

[00:59:58] But for me it was like, no, that's not my vision.

[01:00:01] I'm not going to just do photography.

[01:00:03] Until I found my vision, it wasn't going to work.

[01:00:06] And as I explained earlier, I found my vision years later as a – well, it's kind of there all along.

[01:00:12] But I found how to make it work.

[01:00:14] And it was just exploring that uniqueness, whether it was the climb or the setting or the rock architecture.

[01:00:21] And I think that is when I realized the uniqueness and pursuing that and the beauty in what we have in climbing

[01:00:29] and really trying to delve into bringing that to its forefront.

[01:00:35] Okay, so you remember earlier I explained how there's a spectrum from documentary to conceptual sort of photographs.

[01:00:41] So when you take the conceptual aspect of that to its conclusion, like – so you look at a scene or a situation and you go,

[01:00:50] what is unique or special about this?

[01:00:52] And as we said, it could be the climber.

[01:00:54] It could be the rock architecture.

[01:00:56] It could be the setting.

[01:01:00] So for each climbing photograph and you work through that process and you go, okay, that is what's unique.

[01:01:08] Okay, so how can I best photograph it?

[01:01:10] But if you think about an area, like what's unique about this area?

[01:01:13] So start thinking big picture.

[01:01:14] So here in the Blue Mountains where I live, one of the unique things we get here is these beautiful inversion layers

[01:01:21] where the cloud sits in the valleys in the morning.

[01:01:24] And it happens in different places around the world, but it's very specific and happens very well up here in the Blue Mountains.

[01:01:33] So for years I thought, how could I – what would the ultimate inversion layer climbing photograph look like?

[01:01:41] And where to get that?

[01:01:42] And it took me years to figure out, to find a climb where I could get the ultimate photograph.

[01:01:47] And then it took like numerous attempts at nailing that photograph before we nailed it.

[01:01:53] So that was a completely conceptual shot.

[01:01:56] You take the concept, work out what the ultimate realisation of that concept might be visually,

[01:02:03] and then go through a back engineering process to go, okay, that's where I need to be at that time with those people climbing there.

[01:02:13] And that light and da-da-da-da-da.

[01:02:15] And so you visualise that and then you create it.

[01:02:18] And so that's the conceptual stuff.

[01:02:20] And that's what I really love.

[01:02:22] My work's a real mixture of documentary to that conceptual.

[01:02:25] And the conceptual stuff sometimes really helps bring those themes to light.

[01:02:30] I've been referencing Dean a lot in this, mostly because I just talked to him not too long ago and also just got his book as well.

[01:02:39] Who else?

[01:02:39] I mean, you – like the thing about you, Simon, is that you're one of these pillars, I think.

[01:02:46] You know, you're pre-digital.

[01:02:48] You were very successful along with, you know, like I said, Jim Thornburg and, of course, Greg Epperson are some of these names.

[01:02:57] There's Beth Wald that come out of this era where it really felt like it was, you know, there was these handful of really go-to, see-them-all-the-time, brilliant photographers.

[01:03:10] Who were your peers that inspired you?

[01:03:12] Or were you like, you know, this guy, you know, a musician who refuses to listen to other music to stay pure or something like that?

[01:03:22] Were there – what was your – and also, what was your – who were your colleagues at the time when you were, you know, a successful – you started to be a successful photographer?

[01:03:32] Ace Cavalli was around.

[01:03:33] I mean, there were so many.

[01:03:35] Yeah.

[01:03:35] I mean, I've got to say, I mean, American climbing photography is basically – in the early 90s, I think it was just exploding.

[01:03:45] And American climbing photographers are still basically the world leaders.

[01:03:50] And you've got such beautiful climbing areas.

[01:03:53] And with your population and industry, a lot more climbers can be – photographers can be supported by the industry.

[01:04:02] And it certainly helped support me, Rock and Ice Climbing Magazine and some of the different companies in my early days.

[01:04:11] Certainly helped keep my career going.

[01:04:13] But yeah, early night is such an exciting time to be coming up as a climbing photographer.

[01:04:17] So I think for me, some of my early influences are like Glenn Robbins, the Australian climbing photographer from the late 1980s.

[01:04:26] He was a legend.

[01:04:28] He went over to the UK and tried to make a living as a climbing photographer.

[01:04:34] And he had some pretty hard times.

[01:04:35] He was involved in some really horrible accidents with people that he was photographing, his friends.

[01:04:42] He had to basically resuscitate and save their lives.

[01:04:48] And he found it very hard to make a living from it and basically gave up.

[01:04:52] But he was documenting the Australian climbing scene in the late 80s and, yeah, like I said, tried to make it internationally.

[01:04:59] So I feel he was sort of like the most important role model for me.

[01:05:05] But I could see that he had trouble turning it into a career or professionally sustaining it.

[01:05:13] But then you had Glenn Tempest, Australian photographer based in Victoria.

[01:05:18] And he was photographing Arapalese and the Grampians in the late 80s after Glenn.

[01:05:24] And he had a more professional sort of approach.

[01:05:26] He was doing more commissioned work and publishing guidebooks and stuff to help keep his work going.

[01:05:34] And I think that sort of was more as an example to me about how I could maybe sustain it.

[01:05:39] And in America around that same time, you had outdoors photographers like Galen Rowell, who obviously a big name in outdoor photography.

[01:05:47] I didn't personally, I wasn't a huge fan of his climbing photography.

[01:05:51] He was more of a generalist outdoors photographer, in my opinion.

[01:05:56] But what I found really interesting about his work is the way he articulated and spoke about his photography.

[01:06:02] So I read a lot of his early books, you know, working with light.

[01:06:07] I forget the titles off the top of my head.

[01:06:09] But he wrote really well about his photography.

[01:06:12] And I found that really interesting to sort of think a bit more deeply.

[01:06:15] And I think he was quite an important influence to me in that respect.

[01:06:20] But then, yeah, the climbing photographers, the specialist climbing photographers who were in the early 90s who were giving it a really good crack.

[01:06:27] So guys like Bill Hatcher, Greg Epperson, Brian Bailey.

[01:06:32] And you have Heinz Zach and Yuli Weissmuller.

[01:06:34] Oh, yeah, right.

[01:06:35] Corey Rich.

[01:06:37] I mean, there was just so many people just doing such incredibly awesome work working with beautiful light.

[01:06:46] Bill Hatcher and Greg and Brian Bailey.

[01:06:50] Yep.

[01:06:50] The way they all used light was incredible.

[01:06:52] And then you had the European photographer Heinz Zach.

[01:06:56] He sort of tagged along with the Hubers and different people.

[01:07:01] And Yuli Weissmuller who tagged along with Stefan Glouch and put out that beautiful Rocks Around the World.

[01:07:07] Rocks Around the World, which came out in 1998, which was –

[01:07:11] I got that here somewhere.

[01:07:13] I got climbing for about three or four years.

[01:07:15] And, yeah, so that was an inspirational book to me in my early climbing years.

[01:07:21] And I just went, yeah, that was the most amazing book.

[01:07:24] But I could – there were always things about it that I kind of thought I would do differently if I ever did a book like that.

[01:07:31] Like matching the clothes to the rope to the –

[01:07:34] Well, I wouldn't want to work with just one climber.

[01:07:37] Right.

[01:07:37] Because I think that gets – no matter how interesting the climber is, looking at a whole book full of photographs of them ultimately gets a little bit samey.

[01:07:48] How many times you change the rope color or clothes, it's still one climber.

[01:07:53] So that was something.

[01:07:55] But that book was really interesting because it exported Arapeles to the world in a way that –

[01:08:01] Sure.

[01:08:02] Like I think probably was the way that so many people saw Arapeles for the first time in those –

[01:08:08] you know, obviously that shot of Stefan soloing Kachung and his stripy trousers, you know.

[01:08:14] Well, iconic book, iconic shot.

[01:08:15] You're referring to the soloing shot of Stefan Glouch on Kachung.

[01:08:19] And now isn't that funny, that shot, however many years we're talking later, like what's that, 30-something years later,

[01:08:29] and that is still the best shot of Kachung ever taken.

[01:08:33] I think there's this funny thing in climbing photography, like should I take a photograph of Kachung,

[01:08:38] like knowing that Yuli took the iconic shot 30 years ago.

[01:08:42] And as a climbing photographer, I think, well, you've got to give it a crack.

[01:08:47] It's not a climb.

[01:08:48] You've got to do your best and put it up there.

[01:08:50] And people might be scared to have a crack because their work's not up to it.

[01:08:54] I mean, I know I'm not going to beat Yuli's shot because it just all – it all comes together.

[01:08:59] It all came together for him.

[01:09:00] There's always that element in climbing photography.

[01:09:02] You've got to be out there and you can predict it as much as you can,

[01:09:06] but there's still that X factor.

[01:09:07] And I'm never going to beat that X factor that Yuli and Stefan brought to that iconic soloing shot.

[01:09:14] But, yeah, you can try.

[01:09:18] So, yeah, I've shot Kachung.

[01:09:19] But I also want to mention Jim Thornburg because I think by then he was probably pretty much in full swing as well.

[01:09:25] I think Jim is probably the only one who's really stuck with it right through.

[01:09:30] Would I be correct?

[01:09:32] Well, I mean, Corey is late in the game too when you mentioned someone like Corey Rich.

[01:09:37] And he's obviously switched a lot to videography.

[01:09:41] So, Corey is sort of more that generation with Tim Campbell and Jimmy Chin and also like Keith Leszczynski and Andy Mann who are sort of –

[01:09:52] I think the kind of later generation American climbing photographers.

[01:09:57] And a lot of them have gone on to do some really cool stuff with videography and video.

[01:10:02] And more National Geographic, more general outdoors photography with their photography.

[01:10:09] I really think there's a couple of generations there.

[01:10:11] So, where does Jim think?

[01:10:12] I think Jim is still in the earlier generation because he must have started shooting about the same time that I did.

[01:10:18] And he just stuck with it.

[01:10:19] And so, he's another photographer who's really developed a whole body of work of climbing photography.

[01:10:26] And I'm just an absolute fan of him and his work and how he's just stuck with it.

[01:10:30] And his book on North American climbing is one of the best books on climbing photography ever produced for sure.

[01:10:38] The other photographer I think is really impressive is Sam B out of France.

[01:10:44] And he's been photographing European climbing for a couple of decades now, covering that really well.

[01:10:50] I guess the flip of that is, I mean, how tuned into like the young guns are you?

[01:10:56] And one thing that's, I think, a little bit different – well, it's a lot different –

[01:11:01] is that there's more prominent women photographers, although a lot of times I think with the internet and what you were talking about earlier,

[01:11:08] it's harder to rise to prominence where you're sort of a household name, you know, as far as photographers go.

[01:11:16] But yeah, I mean, do you have any reflection on people in the modern sense?

[01:11:21] I mean, Corey's still shooting.

[01:11:23] Lidzinski is sort of the current master in my opinion, although he's a generalist now as well.

[01:11:30] Yeah, in case it means more general work.

[01:11:33] I'd love to see him shoot more climbing again.

[01:11:35] Yeah, I think this is something to do with social media that is interesting.

[01:11:39] And I'm not sure if it's helpful or not helpful in helping the new generation of climbing photographers get established

[01:11:48] because I think chasing likes and follows on social media can kind of be a bit of a black hole trap, possibly.

[01:11:55] I don't have the answer on this.

[01:11:56] I'm not huge on social media.

[01:11:58] My following is pretty modest.

[01:12:00] I'm just not active enough.

[01:12:02] But there are other people who play that game much, much better and are much more into it.

[01:12:07] But I just I haven't quite figured out how it's going to lead for them from that into some sort of sustainable business.

[01:12:14] And they might have a business model in mind where they can do something with their social media

[01:12:18] and it will lead to more commissioned work or more jobs.

[01:12:20] But I think that's why it's so important that it comes down to their vision because maybe it's not so important if they've got their vision and they can just pursue that and create something.

[01:12:29] But if it's just about getting likes and follows, I can just see that petering out after a few years of hard work because why?

[01:12:38] Yeah.

[01:12:38] Yeah.

[01:12:38] I mean, we can leave it at that.

[01:12:41] Why?

[01:12:42] Why?

[01:12:43] Why go to all the effort of shooting climbing?

[01:12:45] Just for likes?

[01:12:46] Just I don't know.

[01:12:47] I always felt there was something more important to say about climbing and climbing was sort of bigger than it just being brought down to this sort of very superficial showcase for likes and kicks and giggles.

[01:12:59] I don't know.

[01:13:01] It's just always meant more to me than that.

[01:13:03] I mean, I hate those sort of whipper videos and the crap you see on social media where people are trundling rocks and just stuff that you just know.

[01:13:10] We should not be filming this.

[01:13:12] Climbing doesn't need the kind of shit put out in public.

[01:13:15] I mean, stuff happens, but we don't have to publicize it.

[01:13:18] This stuff gets used against us.

[01:13:19] In Australia, we've run into really major access issues here for reasons that, oh, my Lord, you just wouldn't believe how convoluted the stuff is that's being used against climbers.

[01:13:32] Because there's political things and power at play and climbers have been turned into a scapegoat, political group, basically, in Australia.

[01:13:43] And so we've got to be really careful how climbing is portrayed now.

[01:13:46] And, yeah, I do kind of vomit a bit sometimes when I see some stuff on social media that's just hyped up and kind of weird.

[01:13:55] And I don't know.

[01:13:56] I guess it's kind of fitting with my age and stuff.

[01:14:01] Yeah, I mean, I have one point.

[01:14:02] Older white Australian male.

[01:14:05] It's not surprising I see the world this way, but I don't know.

[01:14:09] I'd love to see more vision and stuff coming through in some of the younger photographers.

[01:14:14] But, yeah, I'd be kind of pressed to pick out particular names.

[01:14:19] But if you mention some, I'm like, oh, yeah.

[01:14:22] Yeah, I mean, I've talked to Drew Smith.

[01:14:24] He's a bit old school.

[01:14:26] And like, you know, this woman, Irene Yee, who, you know, it's a different angle.

[01:14:32] You know, you were talking about sort of promoting climbing, doing good in the world kind of a thing with some of your ideas.

[01:14:39] But, you know, there is this other version of that that's a modern version, which is that there is this social movement in climbing now.

[01:14:50] Yeah, kind of community inclusion kind of thing.

[01:14:53] Community inclusion and using climbing for that good.

[01:14:56] And I think there's, you know, I mentioned Irene.

[01:14:58] There are photographers out there.

[01:15:01] And part of the game is to, you have to, you know, part of the game business-wise is you have to be on social media.

[01:15:08] It's the same with this podcast, you know.

[01:15:10] Sure.

[01:15:10] I don't love social media, but it's how this podcast gets disseminated for what it's worth.

[01:15:16] And so I do see that.

[01:15:18] And I think that's a little bit of a thing that, you know, you guys, when I say you guys, I'm talking about that pantheon we just talked about.

[01:15:26] Weren't necessarily, it wasn't part of necessarily your vision, but it's this new vision of how climbing photography can be used.

[01:15:34] I reject it as a new vision.

[01:15:36] Sorry.

[01:15:37] Yeah.

[01:15:37] I get your point.

[01:15:38] I think it's a good one.

[01:15:39] I think that community aspect of climbing, photography and an inclusive thing, I think that's good.

[01:15:49] It's important.

[01:15:50] It's a part of climbing that should be promoted and encouraged.

[01:15:53] I kind of feel there's almost an element of kind of turning back or implied that the older generation climbers had some things wrong.

[01:16:02] And there's certainly been mistakes and people who certainly deserve to have absolutely nothing to do with climbing over the years.

[01:16:12] But I think for the most part, our older generation, not always understood as well as we could be.

[01:16:19] But, you know, one of the things I said to you earlier as I tried to do in my climbing was to photograph lots of different people.

[01:16:25] And I never kind of brought any particular preconceived notions.

[01:16:31] I guess we all have our personal biases.

[01:16:33] But I tried to work with whoever was keen.

[01:16:35] So, you know, often professional climbers or really serious climbers were keener to help or had more of an interest to help.

[01:16:44] So there is often a bias towards working with good climbers.

[01:16:48] And I also like working with really good and really experienced climbers because it's safer.

[01:16:53] I'm not asking something.

[01:16:55] You know, I'm not working with people I've got to babysit that they might have an accident if doing something out of their comfort zone or experience zone.

[01:17:03] Or just you end up working someone because they're keen, but then you realize, oh, shit, they don't know what they're doing.

[01:17:09] Oh, fuck.

[01:17:10] I really want nothing to do with this.

[01:17:12] So, yeah, there's a tendency as a photographer to want to work with more experienced climbers.

[01:17:17] But, yeah, I'd work with whoever was keen.

[01:17:19] I was married to Monique Forestier, who was Australia's best female rock climber.

[01:17:25] Well, we were together for 20 years.

[01:17:27] We're now divorced.

[01:17:27] But, you know, we were married for like 12 years.

[01:17:29] We have a 16-year-old daughter together.

[01:17:32] And, you know, I've seen all the challenges she's gone through in the coming up through the ranks in the Australian climbing scene, male-dominated scene back in the early, you know, 2000s.

[01:17:42] And I'm very supportive of that.

[01:17:44] So I kind of reject that there's some really wrong thing with the way climbing has been portrayed.

[01:17:51] I mean, I think to me there's bigger issues almost in climbing than that issue.

[01:17:56] Like in Australia, oh, Lord.

[01:17:59] But those sort of issues, honestly, they're minor compared to losing access to climbing areas.

[01:18:07] There is nothing more devastating to rock climbing or climbing than losing access to a major climbing area.

[01:18:15] So right now we've lost access to 79% of the rock climbing in the Grampians.

[01:18:21] It's been banned.

[01:18:23] And there's sections of Mount Arapalese that have been banned.

[01:18:27] And we're waiting to find out the final decision on the rest of Arapalese.

[01:18:32] And basically, if they find any Aboriginal cultural heritage signs at Arapalese and they've surveyed the entire mountain, then they might shut more of Arapalese down.

[01:18:45] Now, the basis for this is pretty shonky, actually.

[01:18:50] It's why 79% of the Grampians is closed.

[01:18:53] It comes down to stone quarrying.

[01:18:56] So where the Aboriginal, you know, thousands of years ago, they might have chipped rock to make cutting tools, you know, stone tools.

[01:19:03] So it's just smashed rock at the base of the cliff where they made stone tools.

[01:19:08] Where the stone quarrying has occurred, they've closed down cliffs for hundreds of metres in different directions or entire cliffs just because there was a little bit of stone quarrying there.

[01:19:18] And it's really dodgy.

[01:19:21] It's very dubious grounds for closing a climbing area because climbers don't damage stone quarry by being in the area.

[01:19:29] It's kind of completely bogus reason.

[01:19:32] I mean, if it's Aboriginal art, whether it's beautiful Aboriginal art that's being painted on the cliff, then climbers have always still stayed well away from those areas.

[01:19:42] They surveyed the Grampians.

[01:19:44] They haven't found one single instance of anywhere that climbers have damaged Aboriginal art.

[01:19:50] That's a fact.

[01:19:51] And even though that was used as grounds for closing down climbing.

[01:19:55] So really, the entire climbing bands, as far as I'm concerned, are completely baseless.

[01:20:00] It's a complete misdirection of expenditure of a huge amount of money.

[01:20:05] It basically comes down to a political play by some very powerful groups.

[01:20:10] And climbers are being the easy scapegoat in the political middle of it all.

[01:20:14] This is the major issue that Australian climbing, and it can occur elsewhere, is facing.

[01:20:20] And so I think, yeah, there's all this other stuff that's going on on climbing, but if we lose Taipan Wall, and we've lost half of it currently, that to me is absolute tragedy.

[01:20:33] And I don't...

[01:20:34] Sorry to be not getting too worked up about other issues in climbing compared to that.

[01:20:38] You know, what politically inspired all that?

[01:20:41] The National Park Service used to encourage climbing and support everything that was going on in the Grambians.

[01:20:47] So, you know, if you look at it at a political level, the politicians at the highest level were saying things like, well, we must protect Aboriginal cultural heritage.

[01:20:59] And the thing is, no one's really got an argument with that.

[01:21:02] No one's got a problem with that.

[01:21:03] No, I, as a climber, I agree.

[01:21:07] Significant Aboriginal cultural heritage should be protected.

[01:21:10] And environmental issues.

[01:21:12] So Aboriginal cultural heritage and environmental issues are the two reasons that they sometimes use to justify closing areas.

[01:21:19] But the issue is really is what is Aboriginal cultural heritage and what is significant and what is, can be saved and what can't.

[01:21:27] Can't.

[01:21:28] So, as I said, you've got Aboriginal art.

[01:21:31] I don't think there's any question that that's...

[01:21:34] Cool Aboriginal art is absolutely amazing and should be preserved.

[01:21:38] And there's kind of invisible art you can't even see.

[01:21:41] You need special equipment to see it there.

[01:21:44] Stone quarrying.

[01:21:46] Climbers don't damage it.

[01:21:47] It's just...

[01:21:48] Sorry, I can't see how significant...

[01:21:50] I can't see how closing an area saves it because we don't damage it.

[01:21:55] But it's completely unjustified to me.

[01:21:58] And then you get these sort of other things like intangible cultural heritage.

[01:22:02] So someone could have a dream time or mythology about an area, an Aboriginal myth, and they can sometimes use that to close down access to an area.

[01:22:11] But it's turned into a massive political issue in Australia because the Australian public are losing access to a lot of land in Australia due to, you know, these Aboriginal cultural heritage concerns.

[01:22:23] The Aboriginal corporations that have been given a say in land management are becoming incredibly powerful.

[01:22:29] They've got a lot of resources.

[01:22:31] And they have a say and they can just close it down saying there's cultural heritage.

[01:22:35] And so basically the politicians, they put onto climbers.

[01:22:39] The national parks use climbers to shut it down, to pretend that they're doing something to protect Aboriginal cultural heritage.

[01:22:47] But they're spending a lot of money, but they actually haven't done a single thing to protect the actual significant art or anything like that.

[01:22:54] They haven't worked with climbers to help preserve these areas.

[01:22:58] It's just...

[01:22:59] It's been a disaster.

[01:23:00] We were thrown under the bus.

[01:23:01] And I think it's going to take a political change in attitude before we see a more reasoned, less divisive approach taken.

[01:23:12] So has this fight split the climbing community as well?

[01:23:17] Absolutely.

[01:23:17] And that has been, to me, one of the absolute disheartening and devastating things that I have seen through all of this, the way the climbing community split.

[01:23:29] There's different levels of understanding of what the actual issue was that we were fighting.

[01:23:35] There was different thoughts of how we should respond to it as a community.

[01:23:39] It was different disagreements.

[01:23:41] Different personality conflicts started popping up.

[01:23:44] But, yeah, very...

[01:23:47] What we're seeing in climbing is kind of like a microcosm of what you're seeing going on in politics and how divisive and how there's different extremes on politics of just leading to conflict and things not being settled down through sort of reasonable discussions and sensible outcomes.

[01:24:03] And I'm just seeing this more division and more conflict.

[01:24:07] And it's just...

[01:24:08] Yeah.

[01:24:09] Yeah.

[01:24:09] There's division in the general community.

[01:24:12] There's general...

[01:24:13] There's division now in the climbing community.

[01:24:15] Yeah.

[01:24:15] And that infighting, to me, has been very, very sad to see.

[01:24:19] What do you see as a possibility of resolution?

[01:24:22] I mean, are you guys just up against the wall as far as this is concerned?

[01:24:26] I understand there's not...

[01:24:28] You didn't...

[01:24:29] I mean, when I was kind of reading about this, and I think we talked about it on the podcast I do with Andrew Bishrat, it seemed like there was not...

[01:24:39] You know, you don't have this long-established access fund kind of situation in Australia.

[01:24:44] And it was very hard to kind of muster any sort of political power when this first started to go down.

[01:24:52] Yeah.

[01:24:52] We got played politically very well.

[01:24:55] So when the first problems started cropping up in the Grampians and at Mount Arapalese, we did get together and try and form a new association sort of based on the access fund.

[01:25:08] It's called the Australian Climbing Association Victoria, which was set up to deal specifically with access issues.

[01:25:16] But it did run into problems.

[01:25:18] After a while, I was sort of involved with it right from the get-go, and I'm still involved in this.

[01:25:22] There's not many of us left now.

[01:25:25] We've basically been sidelined.

[01:25:27] And earlier on, there was a lot of infighting.

[01:25:29] There was a big committee.

[01:25:30] Then there was infighting and trying to get rid of the president.

[01:25:35] And seven people resigned and kind of went off on their own.

[01:25:39] And they basically have helped...

[01:25:41] Some of them have helped Parks Victoria set up a new kind of committee that's basically rubber stamping

[01:25:48] and helping a lot of things that are enabling them to push through their agenda, closing down climbing areas.

[01:25:59] And they plan to bring in a permit system and things like that.

[01:26:03] So the ACAV, the Australian Climbing Association Victoria, they were more interested in fighting from a legal and political perspective and trying to really fight the bans head on.

[01:26:17] Whereas others felt that taking a more appeasement line and just trying to agree with everything that was being thrown at us and kind of a guilt trip.

[01:26:29] Like there was even this group in the climbing community that set up, which was called the Grampians Women Reconciliation Network.

[01:26:36] And they were climbers who took it upon themselves to represent climbing and started working with one of the local Aboriginal corporations through Parks Victoria.

[01:26:47] They got involved in surveying kind of some of the climbing areas.

[01:26:52] And it's basically just rubber stamping the closures that were being encouraged.

[01:26:57] And they say we're representing what climbers were doing, but they basically enabled the corporations to sideline the groups that were really vigorously kind of trying to represent climbing from an access perspective

[01:27:10] and would have put forthright arguments as to why we had a legitimate reason to be in these areas.

[01:27:16] So the climbing community basically imploded, set up into different camps and different camps played off and ended up undermining.

[01:27:26] I'm involved in the ACAV, so that's why I see it, that a lot of work we were doing was undermined and we've kind of been excluded.

[01:27:34] So what we're now concentrating on in the ACAV is trying to deal more from a political level, a de-sensit change in the climate, political climate in Australia and in Victoria.

[01:27:45] And it's just, it's going to take time to play out and I don't know what will happen.

[01:27:50] And I don't know.

[01:27:52] I mean, climbers used to be pretty kind of gutsy, rebellious people.

[01:27:56] And I always thought people would just go climbing, but a threat of a fine, no matter how completely unreasonable it is, I guess it's very off-putting.

[01:28:09] And, yeah, it's a real, real, real problem.

[01:28:13] Yeah, we can, I think we probably can move on from this.

[01:28:15] Yeah, I could talk about it for hours.

[01:28:17] Yeah, totally.

[01:28:18] It's a difficult subject, yeah.

[01:28:20] For me, you know, it happened in 2019.

[01:28:23] I saw the climbing community explode.

[01:28:26] I published the guidebook to the Grampians and Mount Arapalys.

[01:28:29] I was involved from the get-go.

[01:28:31] I eventually joined the ACAV after it had all imploded and just so I could help try and keep it going because I think it's important.

[01:28:40] But, yeah, it's an absolute tragedy.

[01:28:44] Australia's up against it.

[01:28:46] We see danger in several other climbing areas in Australia right now with access problems.

[01:28:54] So, yeah, it was a very, very sad time and I got very involved in 2019.

[01:29:00] I spent a year working, trying to help fight it and that kind of put me in a very bad place, which kind of led to my – it was a factor that led into things kind of disintegrating in my relationship.

[01:29:14] And then COVID hit and then, I don't know, world changed.

[01:29:17] You know, I feel like as a climbing photographer, I think you're one of the greats.

[01:29:23] You know, your body of work is extensive.

[01:29:27] You've been here, like you said.

[01:29:29] You know, you've been in the game, doing it professionally for longer than almost anybody.

[01:29:37] And, you know, I think that – I don't know if it feels like a comfortable place for you to, you know, be – like you said, this book is – if you died tomorrow, this book is a representation of what you've accomplished.

[01:29:50] But where does climbing sit for you as far as you doing it, as far as your relationship to it?

[01:29:57] I mean, we've just heard, you know, some kind of, you know, sort of darker ideas around it.

[01:30:03] The Australian climbing community kind of splitting over this thing that resulted in your personal life.

[01:30:11] Yeah.

[01:30:11] You know, you being so invested that your personal life was damaged by it.

[01:30:15] Yeah.

[01:30:16] But, you know, it's 2024.

[01:30:18] You're 58.

[01:30:19] Yeah.

[01:30:20] You're still climbing.

[01:30:21] You're still engaged.

[01:30:23] Yeah.

[01:30:24] What are the bright spots?

[01:30:25] Is it still an important thing that you love and believe in?

[01:30:29] Yeah, it's been very challenging.

[01:30:31] I mean, I've been climbing for 41 years.

[01:30:33] And this last 12 months, honestly, I've done less climbing than ever because I've had a flame shoulder bursa problem.

[01:30:43] Hello.

[01:30:43] Welcome.

[01:30:43] Do it all.

[01:30:44] Yeah.

[01:30:45] It's an old age injury.

[01:30:47] And it's probably from June, I mean, for all these years.

[01:30:50] But so I've done less climbing the last 12 months than I have.

[01:30:53] And that's been frustrating because I really, I absolutely never want to lose my connection with climbing.

[01:31:01] Even if I'm just pottering up some easy, safe sport route that's just really easy in 10 years time, I still want to be out there doing it.

[01:31:10] Never lose that connection.

[01:31:12] Because it's great.

[01:31:14] That's one of the things I've always thought was special about climbing.

[01:31:17] It's something you could do.

[01:31:18] You can chase the grades when you're younger, but you can still stay with it and just make it whatever you want when you're older or make it whatever you want whenever you want because it's fun.

[01:31:30] And it's whatever you want to make it to.

[01:31:31] You can climbing.

[01:31:32] I mean, one of the unique things about climbing is the adventures that you can have.

[01:31:38] And that's why outdoor climbing is what inspires my photography rather than indoor climbing because that's the uniqueness, the adventure, the travel.

[01:31:45] But climbing is just fun.

[01:31:47] So, yeah, do make it whatever you want.

[01:31:50] And I just want to keep my hand in because even if I'm just traveling and photographing and I always try to just experience the climbing at a different place.

[01:31:58] But I just never want to lose that, the travel, the adventure, the hanging out and sometimes going out with a group of people and creating something.

[01:32:10] I love that process as well.

[01:32:13] Yeah, one thing I didn't mention earlier that when I was really getting into climbing and photography or when I was really getting into climbing when I was 16, the one thing that was really formative to me was I found two books in the school library.

[01:32:31] And one of these books was Everest the Hard Way by Chris Bonington.

[01:32:34] And the other one was The White Spider about the Eiger versus the center of the Eiger.

[01:32:39] And I read these two books when I was about 15 and they just completely inspired me.

[01:32:43] And I was really into the outdoors and I just read those books and went, I want to be a mountaineer.

[01:32:48] I want to do mountaineering when I get older.

[01:32:50] And that's how I kind of got into rock climbing because I felt to do mountaineering, I had to become a good rock climber first.

[01:32:57] And I just started and I realized it wasn't very good.

[01:32:59] And I just started training to get better and better and better so I could be good at it.

[01:33:03] And I just, I realized rock climbing was really cool and I just never really got into mountaineering.

[01:33:08] Those early books were completely formative and I just thought it'd be so cool like one day.

[01:33:12] Those books had a massive impact on my life.

[01:33:15] If I actually published a book that would have a positive impact on someone else's life like that one day, that would be so cool.

[01:33:40] Okay, folks, thanks for listening.

[01:33:42] And thanks to Simon for beaming in from the other side of the world.

[01:33:47] You can follow Simon Carter at Simon Carter underscore onsite over there at Instagram.

[01:33:53] It's an awesome page.

[01:33:55] Not a lot of fluff, just awesome photography.

[01:33:59] Bright, beautiful images.

[01:34:01] And as I mentioned before, it will make you salivate to go down to Australia and go rock climbing, which I would highly recommend.

[01:34:08] As I hinted in this, it was probably the most formative foreign trip that I ever did in my younger years.

[01:34:15] My first one flying to another country for months on end to climb and immerse myself in the culture.

[01:34:22] Unbelievable.

[01:34:23] Get out there.

[01:34:24] Of course, check out The Art of Climbing by Simon Carter.

[01:34:30] These coffee table books are special.

[01:34:33] I know you can look at whatever you want on the computer screen.

[01:34:36] I know you can look at whatever you want on the computer screen.

[01:34:39] And maybe it's an old school notion to sit with a book and page through and look at photographs.

[01:34:44] But there's some great essays in this one as well.

[01:34:47] It's an heirloom.

[01:34:48] So maybe get one.

[01:34:49] And hey, you Australian listeners, if you've made it this far, turn me on to some more Australians that I could talk to.

[01:34:56] I've had a little trouble getting those folks on the show.

[01:34:59] I've had some flat-out no's from some of your most iconic climbers.

[01:35:05] Or had folks on the hook and then they wiggled off.

[01:35:07] So make suggestions.

[01:35:08] You can email me at chris at anormacast.com.

[01:35:12] And if that suggestion comes with a contact and an introduction, all the better.

[01:35:17] All right, folks.

[01:35:19] Enjoy Rocktober.

[01:35:20] Get out there.

[01:35:21] Have some fun.

[01:35:22] Maybe I'll see you in Banff.

[01:35:23] Maybe I'll see you at the Crag.

[01:35:25] Maybe I won't see you at all.

[01:35:28] And don't forget to check your knots.

[01:35:30] Let's get started.

[01:35:52] Yes.

[01:35:53] Beautiful.

[01:35:53] Feeling it.

[01:35:54] Let's get some smiles.

[01:35:55] It's all in here.

[01:35:56] That's it.

[01:35:57] Yes.

[01:35:57] Let's let the inside out.

[01:35:59] Okay, you're an animal.

[01:36:01] Yes.

[01:36:01] There we go.

[01:36:02] You're a tiger.

[01:36:04] You're Tony the target.

[01:36:05] You're great.

[01:36:06] Very good.

[01:36:08] Loving it.

[01:36:08] Now you're a lemma.

[01:36:10] Running as a pack.

[01:36:11] Yes, yes.

[01:36:11] We go left.

[01:36:13] We go right.

[01:36:14] Yes, yes, yes.

[01:36:15] There's a predator out of the jungle.

[01:36:16] What's going on?

[01:36:17] Oh.

[01:36:18] Burrow.

[01:36:18] Burrow.

[01:36:19] That's right.

[01:36:20] You're a lemma.

[01:36:20] That's all you've got.

[01:36:21] You don't have sharp teeth capable of biting.

[01:36:23] Make an interconnected series of tunnels like the Viet Cong.

[01:36:26] And look, look, look, look, look.

[01:36:27] I'm not even shooting you.

[01:36:28] It's crazy.

[01:36:29] And I'm spent.