Tim Kemple » The North Face

Scotland : In Transit

tim_kemple — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 14:32:49 +0000

Headed back home from Scotland – more to come. Product shot (Tron?):

New Video: People Profile with Emily Harrington

tim_kemple — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 08:07:13 +0000

Here’s another new Mallorca video; this time we tried to keep the talking to a minimum and let the great audio track carry the piece.

New Video: People Profile with Cedar Wright

tim_kemple — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 23:10:51 +0000

Well I had hoped to announce the soft launch of my new website today, but its just not in the cards [stay tuned for it later this week?]. What I can share is the first of several video profiles I have in the queue. This is a quick piece about Cedar Wright – a climber, musician, film maker, and a great friend. I hope you enjoy.

Jungle Marathon with Mike Wolfe

tim_kemple — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 23:09:29 +0000

Mike Wolfe is just another all-around badass from Bozeman Montana. Something about that area breeds people that just crush in the mountains, no matter what the sport. Mike is a lawyer, climber, skier, and most notably a North Face Endurance Athlete; he’s also one of the three runners we had the great opportunity of working with in the Amazon Jungle during the Jungle Marathon 2009 earlier in the month. Check out Mike in this short video we (Hennie VJ and I) shot and produced for The North Face:

Picking Off the Leaches

tim_kemple — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 16:20:53 +0000

If a picture is worth a thousand words, how many for a video? Here’s the first from Brasil… sitting in the airport waiting for out flight to Sao Paulo.

Mallorca – What Not to Do

tim_kemple — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 21:12:37 +0000

Well we set out to shoot a little how to video this past weekend in Mallorca. We are afterall hanging out with some of the best climbers in the world, so who better to talk about the equipment that we are using to get the really unique strobed shots we have been taking? This was our setup shot… then things didn’t go quite as expected. Check it out:

Shooting Something That’s Been Shot A Million Times

tim_kemple — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 23:49:41 +0000

I’m sure we’ve all had an experience where we find ourselves shooting something that has been shot before. Classic spots like Taft Point in Yosemite come to mind, how many millions of people must have taken photos from that exact spot? Golden Gate Bridge anyone? Still, a good photographer finds a way to shoot those exact locations, and make them look unique, fresh and well… cool again.

That’s the situation I’ve found myself in here in Mallorca, Spain. While shooting photos is only a small part of this latest gig for The North Face, it is a big part of what I need to get done in my two weeks here. The problem is Deep Water Soloing (or Psicobloc) blew up big here in 2001, and for the most part everything at the few major walls was shot ages ago. Add in the problem of limited access to the unique viewpoints, the need to shoot unique looking video, high maintenance professional athletes, and uncooperative weather and its gets really dang hard to be “unique, fresh and cool”.

But after some messing around I’ve come up with a way to create unique images of the climbing in Mallorca that I think my client is going to be stoked on. Its a bit limited in that I can’t shoot these shots on every wall, but for the most part there is a lot of opportunity to get creative… all while standing in the same places hundreds of talented photographers have stood in years past.

Here’s a quick example of Alex Honnold on ‘Afroman’ – El Diablo Wall, Mallorca. Click past the break to read a bit about the setup.

To get this shot I climbed down into the cave below the start of the climb, but still 15 ft or so above the ocean. This is no simple task, as the only way into the cave is by down climbing 60′ of challenging climbing to get into position. I didn’t have a dry bag so it was just the 5d, my fisheye, and Pocket wizard in an FStop Mala and cross my fingers that I didn’t whip into the ocean.

Once I was setup, Pat my assistant rappelled off the top of the cliff to the climber’s right side with the lighting equipment, just out of view of my frame (we tried the climber’s left side the day before and it didn’t look as minty as we wanted).

Pat had an AlienBee 800 on a lightstand, with a pocket wizard taped to the Alien Bee and the cord running into a pack on his back to the power source. We added a 30 degree grid to the AB to focus the light the way wanted. After a few test shots to get our exposure dialed in, I had Alex Honnold climb out the middle of the cave, this is one of the last frames I grabbed before he moved out of sight. It takes a bit more effort to get these shots, but I think it pays off.

We are going to try and do a behind the scenes type video piece over the weekend to show some of the equipment and widgets we are using to get these shots (several people have asked to see our systems), so check back. tk

More Mallorca

tim_kemple — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 09:31:16 +0000

Here’s a quick vid from Mallorca. This shoot is another North Face project, focused almost entirely on video. The first part are live ‘dispatches’ from the field (edited by the athletes) that we are posting on facebook and other social media platforms and the second are more polished web videos for their main site (edited by me). We have three people shooting video; Pat (my assitant), Cedar Wright (TNF athlete), and Myself. We are shooting on a combination of GH-1’s and 5d Mark II’s as well as a HMC-150 (we haven’t been using it much).

So here you go; quick and dirty –