Mar

7 Days of Zero Gravity.

The return of Spring marks the beginning of a new rock climbing season across the country, especially in the Southeast when the weather is no longer icy cold or tremendously hot like it is during summer. It is when the condition is just “right,” warm enough that camping isn’t a fight with the freezing wind, and chill enough that getting to the anchor isn’t a shower of sweat.

March 10th, I headed up to Slade, Kentucky to get away from the society for a while. “Awhile” could be anywhere between a day or two to maybe a week, while the plan wasn’t quite solid, all I knew was that this trip would change me in some ways.

The crew included myself, Ben Collins, Alex Whitman and another guy. We camped at Miguel’s (it’s like a tradition to camp at this awesome campground just for the sake of it, noone knows why, and noone asks why)

The nightlife at Miguel’s was quite what I would expect: Random people doing random things. The other way to put it: “It’s Miguel’s”.

My favourite part was me jamming some didgeridoo around the fire with couple guys playing guitars, djembe and harmonica. I don’t remember what tune it was but It was in rhythm enough that couple people would get up and dance to our homemade music.

2 Days after, Monday, when Ben and Alex finally made it to the Red, we went out for some serious climbing. With a huge variety of climbing destinations, it was hard to put down a final destination for the day before breakfast. It was usually up to the weather, or how we felt.

Ben was our long lost veteran who had been in this business for quite a while but the fire seemed to never stop in his spirit. Ben was psyched, so psyched that he ended up not doing a single top rope regardless of how tired he felt.

Bath Tub Mary

The Arsenal – Muir Valley.

“It’s when the pump sensation is taking over your muscle, when the anchors are so close to the touch but so far away from the reach. When adrenaline rushes in your every single vein, when the vision is blurry and losing its focus… It’s when everything happens at once, at the moment of that final clip”.

On a side, taking photographs from 60-70ft in the sun after a climb wasn’t the ideal job that anyone would like to have. But the hard work paid off with these awesome photographs that made me feel pretty rewarded.
Thanks LaSportiva for sending me these awesome Speedsters, they were solid good. Although being in the harness up in the air for a long period wasn’t easy with rock shoes on.

Our other veteran was Alex. Alex had been around the world and the country for years. He recently moved to Chattanooga for the famous Southern sandstone and the convenience of being less than an hour from most local climbing crags. This man inspired the group to climb harder than we would ever imagine as he always said “Climb until you can’t anymore, climb until your muscle gives up, climb hard!”.

Zero Gravity

Air Ride Equipped

We were joined by a cool “stranger” who later became our close friend Scott. Scott met us at Muir Valley and climbed along from day 5th til the end.

Rock Wars

The Autumn

Golden Boy

7 Days at the Red changed my life again, in a way that I would expect it to. I felt much more confident in this sport.

Furthermore, the amount of people that we got to know and invited to Chatty probably surpassed the amount of climbing that we did. It was that awesome of a trip.

Some pictures were taken with friends’ assist.

68 days ago Short URL Comments

Outdoor - Sport

alpine sport/gorge rock/photography projects/red river gorge

Feb

Winning La Sportiva Photo Contest

So, it is interesting that some of my photography works are being shown on La Sportiva website. http://www.lasportiva.com/
La Sportiva is the leading company in the outdoor industry, alpine sport and especially rock climbing.

The original photos are from the Red River Gorge rock climbing trip in October last year: http://khangv.com/2011/10/28/red-october/

As an inspired photographer and an enthusiastic rock climber, being featured on a prestigious company’s website like La Sportiva is a big achievement. It is big because I reached the goal of both of my worlds: photography and rock climbing.

La Sportiva is also kindly enough to promise sending some of their products to me for my photographs. Haven’t been doing any photography projects lately, I am planning on getting back behind the lens for some new rock climbing photoshoots when the Spring season is coming.

Khang.

101 days ago Short URL Comments

Outdoor - Sport

alpine sport/gorge rock/photography projects/photography works/prestigious company/red river gorge

Dec

Back to December – Emily Senior Photoshoot

Nothing better then wrapping up 2011 with a senior photoshoot on a gorgeous day in sunny weather late December. The photoshoot was pretty relaxing and enjoyable, we all had a whole lot of fun and laughter.

Emily is currently a senior at Fletcher Academy, an Adventist academy in North Carolina, but the photoshoot was done in Chattanooga because Emily is thinking of going to Southern Adventist University which is located about 20 minutes away from downtown Chattanooga.

The original plan was to shoot at 86 Things @Zach McDonald then Sunset rock but we decided to skip Sunset Rock to shoot at the Museum area due to the limited time.

The shop is of Zach McDonald, a local artist who designs and puts together cool stuffs such as jewelries, decorations and paintings.
-– 86 Things: 1110 Market Street Suite 121, Chattanooga, Tennessee

Although Senior Portrait is not what I usually do, I have seen enough senior sessions to realize that they all look somewhat similar to each other. Still that same cheesy pose, still that smile, clothes, and background. Why don’t we stop putting on the main subject an unrealistic look while it is so much more interesting capturing them being who they are.

I think it is good sometimes to let the “model” bring up his or her idea about what should be done. I found that it is so fun for the “photograph” to work together with the “photographed,” the products of that co-operation surprise me most of the time when I get to see them afterwards.

I can’t say enough how much I liked the location, this Venice looking spot was the perfect place of the day. I loved the lighting, the scene and its uniqueness.

Save the best for last, these shots were taken just right before we left and they turned out amazing. I absolutely love the perfectness in these photographs.

The perfect shot:

These are just some in the whole set.

I hove you all have a Happy New Year!

Khang

2011

146 days ago Short URL Comments

Portrait

Oct

Red October

Fall break is always the perfect time for an outdoor trip. Late October, we took a trip to Red River Gorge, Slade, Kentucky, one of the most famous rock climbing destinations in the U.S. to enjoy the fall in a very special way, climbing.

- I write this entry not as a formal typical photography journal but rather a personal piece of my little experience in this new sport:
- I transferred to a public university in Tennessee not too long ago from a private one so everything here to me was new (like I had to begin my college journey again). Fortunately, I met Drew and Jordan, the two brilliant/fun rock climbing leaders I have ever met.

Drew (left) and Jordan

– Being in this trip was a real privilege, beside of getting to know the sport, I had chance to get to know many people who I should have known way before because of how awesome they were: Josh, Robert, Jennifer, Alli, Andy, Elliot, Hannah, Zoe, and Caleb. Each of them was really a character, they really surprised me with their positive attitude, ability and especially humor since this isthe first public college group of friends that I have been with. Humor played a huge role in this trip, Zoe was a bomb of laughters, Drew and Jordan were as well funny. My favourite moment of Zoe was when she tried to lead a 5.10 and had a very hard time with it but victory could not get away from her at the top of that climb.

Zoe Smith

- The person who really gave me a big surprise was Caleb. This kid really rocked things out in style with highly motivated attitude and wise decisions (in term of climbing technique), he seemed a bit shy at first but that shyness instantly went away when he killed his first 5.10 lead around dusk during the first day. Truthve been told that Caleb was also a reliable belayer (I am not any close to that – According to Jordan…)

Caleb James

– Another person of the trip was Hannah, Hannah was super funny and spontaneous. Well, I don’t have to say much since the picture can describe it all:

Hannah Rogers (right)

So the biggest question: “How did it feel being a rock climbing photographer?” Lucky that it is not a tough question to answer, at least not as tough as doing it. Yes it was not an easy “normal” thing to do, but indeed a challenge. To be able to catch those critical moments of this sport was the biggest difficulty for me, especially there were too many factors that distracted my focus on the object such as the swing of the rope, the tireness of climbing, the height, and the view.

The quality of this photoshoot did not really meet my satisfaction because I didn’t really have the opportunity to exclusively manage to get the shots that I wanted (unlike most magazine rock climbing photos are posed, all I did was journalistic). Two things that magazine photos have are the controlled lighting and angle, usually, the climber would work with the photographer to get the perfect shots. In another word, the climber is in a somewhat passive position in that situation. Unfortunately, the trip was not exclusively designed for photography so demanding too much time and effort to get the “perfect shot” was not a good idea.

Camera in action