I used to have every excuse in the book as to why I couldn’t rock climb. They went from excuses to reasons I should climb. I posted awhile back about my good friends Ben And Vince introducing me to rock climbing. Well, after one day I knew it was on.  A quick trip over to REI and there was no getting rid of me. Learning to climb is definitely a humbling progression and one I would suggest to everyone. I had an amazing summer of learning, trying, failing, falling, sending, and projecting. We climbed at the Quincy Quarries and out in Leominster at Crow Hill and hit up Metrorock in Everett on the days we couldn’t be outside. Thankfully all of us are wedding photographers. Ben & Vince are Avenna Studios and Vince’s girlfriend Laura is one half of Studio Noir, throw in a little Hitched Studios (me) and you have yourself a photographically exceptional climbing team that can climb on Tuesday’s, when everyone else is at work. That is the story of my summer.

Once I got comfortable climbing, I wanted to explore how I could change my approach to shooting climbing. The first hurdle, stop climbing long enough to take pictures, possibly the hardest one. I have the same problem with snowboarding, sometimes I just want to ride, not shoot. When I did shoot I could do so from where ever I wanted, as long as there was something to tie myself to, much safer than some of my previous attempts at shooting from up top. We tried to do a little night climbing a few times, which was awesome and frustrating. You would think, knowing that we would be climbing and hiking at night,we  would have remembered flashlights…… nope. No worries, we all had service, we all downloaded flashlight Iphone 4 apps and hiked out with those. More than once I thought “did you seriously just download a flashlight to your phone in the middle of the woods?”….. it must be the future.

I realize it is a little overdue, but here are some shots from a few different days over the summer. I really want to thank Ben, Vince, Laura and Murray for an amazing summer of climbing and adventure.

Ben

Vince

Having 2 Bens and 2 Lauras didn’t get confusing at all

Quincy Quarries

he became our friend for the day, super nice but a little nuts.

I’m not always lookin down

tied in, off rope on a super sketch ledge…. a little nerve racking at first

he lived

made some new friends along the way, Rachael spent a few hours alongside us teaching her friend to climb

so good she can climb in Uggs….. beats hikin down from getting the rope in your climbing shoes

Laura (Vince’s girlfriend)

I don’t suggest squishing the head of the person belaying you

story on my life

I feel Ben need more things attached to him, I’m not sure he has enough

courtesy of Vince….. me, shocked I made it that far and stumped on how to get further

Thank you Vince,

until next time……

They say Mount Washington has some of the worst weather on the planet at times. There was not a single cloud in the sky all day, except at the top of Mt. Washington.  This was the day after the blizzard and there was 3ft of fresh at Bretton Woods. I am guilty of having too much fun riding to have done any shooting, but on my way home I stopped to appreciate the end of a great day. This is 6 photos stitched.