Art
Michael Clark was a budding rock climber when he decided to turn his hand to photography. Today, he's one of the world's leading photographers of adventure sports.
We caught up with Santa Fe-based photographer Michael Clark to look back on his journey to get behind the lens. Here, in his own words, he lifts the lid on his craziest project and picks five of his favourite pictures from his career to date.
Introduction
I got into adventure sports photography through climbing. I studied physics at university and did some photography as a kid, but it was rock climbing that really brought me back to photography and got me shooting adventure sports in particular.
I've now been an adventure sports photographer for 25 years. I've shot everything from big wave surfing to mountain biking and ice climbing. I'm super-passionate about adventure sports and exploring what we're capable of as human beings.
Photograph what you're passionate about – find those things that really get you excited and concentrate on that
Craziest project
Probably the Lighting the Spirit project. It was with Rafa Ortiz and a few other kayakers in Washington State at the Little White Salmon River on Spirit Falls. It's only a 40ft [12m] waterfall, but we had an incredibly difficult task ahead of us to pull off and light up this entire waterfall and get the gear to the base of the climb. To this day it's probably still the most successful assignment I've ever had and probably the best images I've created in my entire career.
Dream project
I've got several ideas for dream projects, but one of them has been around for a long time. I won't give all of it away, but it involves a big wave surfer, a giant wave, two helicopters and a truck load of lighting. Kai Lenny, let me know if you’re up for that.
Danny did a Backflip and the policeman was like, 'Oh yeah, that was awesome'
Advice for aspiring photographers
This is about as good a time as it's ever been for photographers. Pretty much every camera on the market these days produces incredible images. It's also never been easier to take pictures, because the cameras do a lot of the work for you.
So, photograph what you're passionate about – find those things that really get you excited and concentrate on that. You'll have a different view point to someone who doesn't know that subject matter very well. For me, that was adventure sports.
Five of his favourite images
1. Danny MacAskill
This was my first assignment for Red Bull. The idea was to do a photoshoot with Danny MacAskill out in San Diego. The challenge was we had no permits, so we had a few run-ins with the cops. We saved this shot for the end of the day, on a traffic island right in front of the airport. A policeman rolled up right behind where we were shooting, I saw him out of the corner of my eye, but Danny was already in, so I kept shooting. Danny did a Backflip and the policeman was like, 'Oh yeah, that was awesome', so I kept going and got one of my favourite pictures.
This shot is me literally inches away from his pedal, looking up, and is still Danny's mum’s favourite picture of him.
2. Dawn Glanc
For this ice-climbing image, I decided to go to Colorado and test out some lighting gear using some advanced techniques. I did it two years in a row, because the first year it worked one way – and I liked that image – but this was the image I created the second time, trying to sculpt the light in a different way.
Having ice climbed there a ton, I had a concept in mind of how to pull it off. The main challenge was sculpting the light so that it lit part of the climb and not the entire climb. I went the day before and tested out the lighting, so knew it would work. It's still one of the best images I've ever shot.
3. Rafa Ortiz
I talked for a year or two about this project, so had a whole bunch of ideas. It was a long process of pitching different ideas and discussing with Rafa Ortiz where to do it, as we needed a waterfall big enough to be interesting and sizeable to look cool, but small enough that he could run 10 or 15 times. I got one shot every time a kayaker went over the waterfall, either hanging off a rope or on the cliff. Amazingly, at the end of the shoot we had so many good images that it made it difficult to pick favourites. I'm still not sure of my favourite three years later.
4. Tony Hoare
This was shot off Vancouver Island in Canada. I'd been there sea kayaking the year before, so had a pretty good sense of it. The weather was mostly horrible, but luckily [on one day] we got lucky with having some low clouds. That was the morning where most of the pictures were made. When you have a scene like that morning when I captured this image, it's hard to miss. I knew this shot would probably be the one, because of the symmetry of the kayaker and the backdrop with the sky and colours.
5. Dylan Longbottom
The back story to this image is a long one. 10 years ago, I was told if I wanted the best surfing images, I'd have to go to Teahupo’o. I spent £10,000 [€11,500/US$12,500] to go to Tahiti for seven or eight days, as I didn't have an assignment. Towards the end, we got huge swell and the top pro surfers had a free surf day. That's that day.
For this image, I was in a boat shooting and the surfers weren't that far away, so you didn't need a huge lens. The main difficulty was being on that boat for 12 hours straight, getting baked by the sun, getting tired and a rogue wave would almost get you blasted off the boat. Not quite as luxurious as most people might think.
I didn't even know I had this shot until I got back. It's a cool shot as it’s kind of a unique perspective that you don't necessarily get all the time when shooting surfing.
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