Long Exposure Part II - Bishop

A few more images from a quick trip to Bishop. The moon was a bit too bright for anything longer than 20 minutes, but I'm pleased with the turnout. I'm looking forward to another session out at Red Rock soon.

25 minute single exposure. The North Star can be seen at the center of the swirl, showing the Earth's rotation during the shot.

Night sky over the Buttermilks. Eerily quiet.

~18 minute exposure of the Peabody boulders.

15 minute exposure.

In rock climbing news It has been unseasonably warm here in Vegas leaving me in a state of agitation when out trying friction dependent problems. I've decided to bide my time in the gym with the goal of developing Iron Fists like The RZA.

When things cool down and I actually finish some boulders I hope to have some videos to post.

-BLOCHEAD

Kraft Photo Shoot

A few shots from the other afternoon. Testing out some new gear.

More to come from our couple days in Bishop! Stay tuned and stay psyched.

-BLOCHEAD

Long Exposure

While not climbing related I thought I would share a recent photo adventure Lib and I took to experiment with some long exposure shots of the night sky and the mountains.

We drove out to the turn for Calico Basin and stopped off at the side of the road just as the stars became visible. To our backs the light from the city, in front of us a pitch black horizon line merged with the sky.

I set up my camera and took a few minutes of test shots before clicking off a 10 minutes exposure. As dark as it was I found it hard to set my focus and harder still to find the framing I was looking for.

An earlier test shot. Taken facing the city, the beam of light from the Luxor can be seen plainly even in a 1 minute exposure.

Before packing up I decided to try one more long exposure shot facing Red Rocks. For those interested in the technical aspects I used a 50mm lens, ISO 100,  f/4 and a shutter speed of ~20 minutes, or as my camera measured it 1149 seconds. I manually set my focus ring just before infinity. Here is the result.

I was surprised to see how much the stars (world) moves in just 20 minutes. I'm looking forward to getting out and experimenting with some other techniques and exposures soon.

I also have a 16x7 crop of the above image that I'll likely make a few prints of in the future. If anyone reading is interested or knows someone that might be shoot me a message below or here.

16x7 crop of the above image. Prints available upon request!

Hope everyone out there is enjoying the season so far. See ya out there!

-BLOCHEAD

Stand and Deliver

It's November 1st and that means climbers around Vegas are getting pretty excited about the coming months. Like everyone else I have projects and problems I have been waiting all summer to try. One such line was the very classic and very isolated gem, Stand and Deliver.

This alluring boulder sits like a motionless eye deep in the canyon, it's light tones strange and intriguing among the dark green brush. Most of the slog from the parking lot is done on pure faith that something incredible awaits at the end. It isn't until the final minutes of the full hour march that the boulder reveals itself as the greenery parts and reveals a smooth face carved with the slightest edges, just enough.

Approaching the mouth of Juniper Canyon.

Lichen on a trailside boulder.

Suddenly, you're under the boulder and it's hard to imagine that the hike is over. It isn't right that something like this should be so mundanely attainable, the way it wouldn't be right to reach the horizon line on an open stretch of highway.

It's just sitting there! Nothing remotely decent to warm up on in either direction, and behind you through the visible heat waves is the parking lot, a million miles away. I guess there's nothing to do but talk about the conditions and swing my arms around absentmindedly.

Looking up from the Stand and Deliver boulder.

Adam Seely readies himself under the looming wall of sandstone.

I had been out here twice before, once to scout and admire, and once to climb. I had maybe five attempts or so on my first warm day back in April. Looking back I'm glad I didn't sent that day.

This time out I nearly climbed the boulder first try. I'm very happy that I didn't send on that attempt. I knew that I would likely only climb this boulder once and I wanted to spend more time experiencing the movement and put more of my skin, energy, and heart into it.

As it turned out I tried five or so times before taking a long break. I had the cliche last burn doubts, walking the line between packing up and booting up before stepping on for one last try. I felt an incredible amount of satisfaction and pride upon reaching the lip physically tired and mentally fatigued, much more than I would have felt had I sent on the warm up burn.

All this might seem overly poetic for a chunk of rock. A scarred up marble compared to the giant walls surrounding and creating the canyon. It could be, but I rarely take time to think about the overall experience of a problem, about the process of climbing it. As with a lot of climbers I like to send, log, and get on to the next one.

With this boulder I felt the need to just linger in the rearview for a while.

-BLOCHEAD