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The Summit Shot

Matthew Irving October 16, 2017

Fisher Towers, Utah - Something I really enjoy creating are large panoramic stitches. Usually, this involves getting into a position where you’re excited with the landscape in front of you, then shooting a huge plate, upwards of maybe 20 photos. I’m not sure if it’s totally necessary, but I overlap quite a bit, to give the program a lot of information to work with. If at all possible, i’ll photograph using a lens with a focal length of at least 50mm, in order to avoid distortion which can be a real pain in the ass to deal with. Once you’ve created the plate, then you wait for the action. In this case, I was filming climbing for an Australian television show. While we were waiting for the TV host to get into position, a random climber summited Ancient Art and rapped back down. I shot a series of photos that captured him/her climbing the last little portion and standing on top. I eventually chose this one over the summit shot, because I liked the idea of the anticipation right before reaching the summit of something. Once you’ve created the plate and picked your action shot, it’s just a simple matter of dropping him/her into the scene. I think what I love most about it is that often times you can create a pretty awesome sense of scale that you wouldn’t be able to create otherwise.

Tags adventure, ancient art, black and white, castleton, desert, fisher towers, landscape, panorama, rappelling, rock climbing, stitch, the rectory, utah