Rock Climbing Photography

We (Michelle and I) spent this morning photographing rock climbers on some sport routes near town. The purpose of the shoot was to add to the climbing images in my stock portfolio. I've photographed climbers a few times and the challenge for me is to capture the feel of the sport.

To shoot the climbers I tied myself off to an anchor about 1/4 the way up one of the routes. By being in close to the climbers on the rock, I was able to overcome the typical "looking up" rock climbing photo. We invited several members from my daughter's climbing team and some other climbing friends to model for us as they climbed.

In the featured image Andrew is straining to complete a climb (which he completed). I focused on his bleeding hand and positioned myself to have his face in the out-of-focus background. My original plan was to post this image in color, but the bright red blood on his middle finger was too distracting - so black & white it is.

For lighting I used a diffused 580EX Speedlight mounted on camera. I set the strobe to a -2/3 f/stop setting to provide fill light to the scene without making the shots look artificially lit.

Canon 5D, Canon 24-105 f/4L lens - 1/160 second, f/4.5, ISO 160