Serving Optics

Mmmm...delicious. Jon Caldwell attempting a futuristic 8C(+)project a few hundred feet below "Slashface." Hueco Tanks season is officially in and I will be traveling to and from there as often as possible this winter. I can't wait! Enjoy.

Three years ago I began a journey...

And it started here. >>> The Earlier Blogs (06-08)

Onward.

Serving Optics

Here is Jen Goings, sending the Hueco Tank's classic boulder problem, "Lobster Claw" V5. I really dig this shot. I remember it being kind of a challenge shooting one North Mountain's most popular, and often photographed, classics in a new and different way. The boulder is also tucked away so tightly in a hole, that I had to try several different angles and lighting techniques to finally get what I wanted. This final image makes me feel like I am in the maze of stone. I'm off the The RRG in 2 days, and right as the snow arrives here in Boulder. RUN!

New Work

Nothing beats seeing your hard work in print media form. There is something very satisfying about "picking up" a hard copy of media, at a market or at home, and flipping through it. It almost seems old school. I gotta say, I just do not get the same feeling from the internet. I sure hope print media never dies entirely.

I'm proud to have donated to The Access Fund an image for use on their new Visa Platinum credit card. This is a new and interesting way to help raise money and protect our priceless climbing resources. You can read more about it here. Man, if only this image license was actually through Visa...


My good buddy and Eldorado local, Steve Levin, has published the long awaited full color guidebook to climbing in Eldorado Canyon (Sharp End Publishing 2009). I was stoked to have him use a large hand full of images for the book. Very cool. Did I mention I live here? You can pick up a copy here.

The new Urban Climber Mag is out and in this issue you'll find a lot of my photography. Being Senior Contributing Photographer at UC Mag is quite possibly my favorite gig and I really enjoy working closely with the team there. This issue you'll find of mine: The "Ear Candy" column, a Lauren Lee "Drive" column, a Rocklands gallery image, images to the cover feature article, "Future Gyms", an "Out of The Box" workshop, and a Kevin Jorgeson "Reads UC" portrait. Dang! Rad.



I'm psyched to have worked again with Asana Climbing and to shoot a portrait of Kevin Jorgeson for an ad in the upcoming Second Edition of the Bishop Bouldering Guide (Wolverine Publishing 2010). Its fun to work with designers to create a different kind of art with my images using graphics and design. Creative and fun.



This Maxim Rope ad has been in print for a while now. The image is of Ethan Pringle sending "Iron Monkey" 5.14 in Eldorado Canyon. I personally think that this style of strobe lighting works great for commercial marketing applications such as this one.



Cheers! Andy

Thank God.

"Dear Andrew Mann,

We wanted you to be among the first to know! We've recently enhanced the 3G network throughout Denver, Boulder, Aurora, Englewood, Littleton, Longmont, Greely, Golden, Arvada, and Fort Collins to provide better in-building 3G coverage, fewer dropped calls and a better overall wireless experience.

The great news is coverage in Colorado will continue to improve as we expand capacity, optimize, and add more sites in the coming months."

Jace Barbin
Vice President & General Manager
Rocky Mountain Region

Thank fucking god. I stopped making phone calls all together with this piece of shit phone. Now my ipod and wireless computer makes phone calls too!!! YAY!!!

Serving Optics

I recently got back from a catalog shoot with Colorado's own, Paige Claassen, down in The Red River Gorge. The shots from the trip are heading to new issues of Climbing and Urban Climber Magazines along with Maxim Ropes Spring Catalog. Below is a fun pic of Paige climbing at The GMC Wall at The Motherlode.

I'm headed back down there in less than a week for a little over 2 weeks this time. Climbing, shooting, working on the house, stuffing my face with Turkey, and just plain chillin' are the top priorities. The house is looking great, and all 5 bedrooms are available for rent per night/week/whatever.

Hit me up if your interested in having a roof over you head, wifi, showers, etc. Btw, the house is 7 miles closer to the Pendergrass Reserve (Bob Marley, Motherlode, Driveby, Purgatory, Gold Coast, etc.) than Miguel's. But alas, I cannot serve you a brilliant slice of pie, or mega breakfast burrito, so Miguel's is always #1 for camping!

I posted a few "before and after" house pics below to show some of the hard work we've done to the place. Cheers!

Mountainsmith

Autumn is my favorite time of the year and with it, my motivation, and the motivation of the many climbers I work with, tend to sky rocket. Well, this year is no different thus far. The last few weeks have been a whirlwind of traveling, hiking, and shooting. From Matt Wilder's 5.14R First Ascent on Devil's Thumb to Jonathan Siegrist's recent stomping of The Red River Gorge, the fast pace keeps getting faster.

So, in order to streamline my travel, my in the field shooting, etc, I've teamed up, exclusively, with Mountainsmith Camera Bags and Travel Gear. I plan on using, testing, reviewing, and even helping to design, what I believe to be the best line of packs on the market. The team at Mountainsmith has recently unveiled an exciting new line of product that makes what I do, not only more efficient, but safer and faster. I'll be periodically blogging about their different products as I field test and travel with them. Exciting stuff, and I couldn't be more stoked to join forces with such an amazing, local, and forward-thinking company.

On my recent week long photo assignment to the Red River Gorge, I had to get a large load of photo equipment, climbing gear, clothes, computer, hard drives, etc to Kentucky. The last thing I want to do on such a short trip is check bags. Not only is it $20 dollars a bag, both ways, but my return flight to Denver left me absolutely zero time to get from my flight, to the last bus back to Boulder.



Now check this out: The pack on my back above (at Chicago O'Hare on layover) is called, Borealis AT ($179), and is a hybrid of a camera bag, computer case, and accessory bag. Normally, my computer bag, in addition to my camera pack, book both my carry on options and essentially forces me to check a bag (damn $40, chill out!). Problem #1 Solved. This pack is also good for a day of shooting at the crag. I can fit a camera body, 3 lenses, flashes, etc in the bottom camera compartment, jumaring gear in the top, and I can sling a static line over the top of the bag which buckles in securely. Though the pack is not designed to bare such a load, (35+ pounds), it is certainly manageable for hikes less than a mile. The separate camera compartment also means that no dirt, or chalk, will encroaches on it. Good stuff.

The Roller bag you see to my right in the photo above, is called The Boarding Pass ($135) and is designed to the maximum regulation size for carry on luggage. Perfect, as I knew I had not an inch to loose and plenty to pack. Note: The Boarding Pass is designed to fit on an overhead luggage compartment perfectly, so packing it so tight that it bulges out like a pregnant mother means that if your caught by a stewardess wrestling it into the overhead, you may be checking it. However, there is plenty of packing room to avoid this. The durability of this bag, along with the ease of packing, made traveling to, and from, The Red River Gorge a breeze.