Hi, I'm Tamara Lackey and on this episode of
Redefine Show for Adorama TV I speak
with Kathy Anderson she shares what kind of
equipment she uses to safely scale walls to getting
spectacular views and great portraits of other climbers.
And she also shares how photographing the elements
and landscapes is her form of therapy. Check it out.
What kind of things are you using when you're
out there?
Show us some of your gear and the things that
help you take the better shots? Yes the biggest thing
is safety I mean you can't just expect to do
adventure photography and just climb up a cliff I mean
there has to be there's so much that goes on behind
the scenes that a lot of people don't understand.
I'm hauling probably 50 to 100 pounds of gear
up the mountain.
I have to have assistance like you can't just say hey let's
go shoot a highline with lights you don't do that.
Pre-production is gigantic and this is my
climbing harness. Petzl is a great company.
What happens is you put one leg through each one of
these and you are supported by loops here and
basically depending on what you're doing you just
put your rigs through these loops and a few carabiners
and that's gonna support you while you're up there.
You have other things called personal anchor systems
that you can use. Obviously you're climbing and shoes
like this that have you know rubber soles, really thick
rubber soles that are gonna help you grip to that rock
really well. You have anchor systems and then
belay devices like this is just called an ATC. This is
called a locking carabiner and the good thing about that
is you cannot- this won't break, the little thingy right here
is not gonna break okay but if you bring it down here
I don't know if you want to get a close-up of that that.
They say red is dead so there's lots of safety
mechanisms to make sure you're safe. My friends
Tim, Eric, all of my buddies, like I said it's a it's
a man's world so you have to really put yourself
out there, but luckily these guys are so sweet
and supportive and patient so that once you learn
the systems and all of that that you know it's not like
oh my gosh she's coming again this is gonna be
an annoyance they're just really supportive. "As long as
you take some amazing shots of me." I call it
my Kathy Anderson male modeling program and it only
takes one time for the guys to jump in front of
my camera and then every other time that I come
with my camera they're like oh can you get me here?
It's like they're laying on the rock like get it.
What bag are you using for all that?
I swear by Gregory packs. Is that your everything bag?
like your gear? This is my day pack I would put my
camera in here there's all kinds of little compartments
Gregory packs are pretty awesome because they really
feel good on my body they really strap well to my body
real tightly and it doesn't feel like there's too much on
my shoulders or pulling me back like this, but I like
this one a whole lot. How do you grab your camera
from there? like if you just pull it out before you go?
What we typically do is pack that and we'll climb up
the wall and then he'll anchor me and first of all that's
the number one most important thing if I have my pack
I'm gonna anchor it to the wall too but if I don't I'll just
sling my camera around my back and usually I
take a carabiner and hook it to my camera.
Oh like a spider holster? Yeah kind of like that I have a
spider holster but you just hook a carabiner to this and
hook it to your camera to and it won't swing back
and forth but the one thing I have noticed is you don't
just sling it around your back especially if you just have
a neck strap just because it's gonna be swaying back
and forth right and that can pull you like that.
The most important thing is lighting because you have
to go at the right time of day right you can't go at noon
because obviously you're gonna get raccoon eyes
but you've got to choose whether you're gonna use
lights or not if you use lights it gets so much more
complicated but the photos are so much cooler.
I've got some photos like I said of the High Line where
I photographed my friend Damon he's an Adidas
sponsored athlete and um he can do all kinds of tricks
like flip around the line.
Yes! Woo!
That was a supercool shoot because
I didn't think I could do it personally
and we hauled all this gear up and I had I think
three assistants with me. It was just a super cool
experience and we were literally with my
pack packed full.
We were like holding on like this two parts of the cliff
and it was super slippery, and it was just really really
scary, but scary slash exciting.
But once it's over it's great.
And then this light you brought can show us what
this is and how to use it?
Absolutely I have two different rigs you have to choose
whether you're gonna do speed lights are you gonna use
mono lights. If you're gonna use mono lights I suggest
going with like the Ellen Chrome's or Pro Photos or even
we're looking at the Paul Buff Einsteins.
I love Paul Buff.
The downside to this one is that it doesn't have
high-speed sync and so you can only go up to a one,
200th of a second but the upside
to this, is that you can go up to,
That things been bashed around!
Actually this is my co-worker, Ben's
This is his light so I didn't bash this.
But I just brought it cuz
yellows my favorite colour but this will let you
overpower the sun it's an Alien Beast 1600 and
it's 640 watt seconds, I think.
So this is a little rig, it's pretty cool.
If you look here it's got four little cold shoes and
there's thumb screws too for a speedlight .
excuse me, I do speak English I promise!
So you put 4 speed lights in here and then
you put the commander on top of it.
We use Yongnuo's the 600
Did you say this was Dave's
Yes Dave Blacks. Thanks Dave Black you're my hero.
He uses this it's very light and very portable like
you can pick it up
say three to five pounds with the speed light so if you
use all four use all four and then if you
have the power of four speed lights
I'd say that's about the same as maybe, an AB1600 so
I could be wrong. It's significantly easier to manage.
Yeah and it tilts just like a normal softbox would but
you can add speed lights you can use two,
You can use four.. three, whatever you want.
And then we have
these Yongnuo's.
I love this it's like show-and-tell!
I know it's fun isn't it
let's see this is my Yongnuo and
Yongnuo came out with a system that is pretty
awesome. I don't use TTL I'm a manual girl, everything
I do is manual. But one will trigger the other. This the
commander and you can change all of your settings
from here just this guy's on my camera and
this is the speed light and you literally just
take it here..and put it right in here and then you've got
nice bounce with everything. Lots of cool things you
do here but I actually use mono lights on the High Line
shoot just to have a comparison, and I used this on
my mountain biking shoot and a couple other shoots
that I did. I did one with aerial silks
Am I also did a few
boxing photo sessions.
Yeah tell us about the boxing sessions.
Well I'm actually a boxer myself well I'm no Muhammad
Ali or anything like that.
Or Leila Ali....
But these are, if I had to tell you what my
favourite piece of equipment these days
aside from photography.
It's this!... ha!
Bone breakers?.. Hah! Bone breakers.
What's up bone breaker?
This is my gym, and this is
the very biggest thing
that has
brought me more confidence.
How would you feel if you never had any experience?
Yeah? Intimidated.
Right well I feel like it's important
as a person to feed your confidence
Because if you are not confident as
a photographer and you can't
give that person off to your clients
there is no way they are going to be confident.
I'm a firm believer in feeding what you expect from
them, because reflections going to give you back
what you need, so these are my
favourite tools, because its given me
a lot of confidence to
am.. really go passed
why own barriers... yeah!
It's just really fun to be able to get in there
Like we spare with the guys..
I'm not the best in the world...
I don't care to be the best in the world
When I step into my boxing gym
the reason I love it so much
is because, the gentlemen and I say gentlemen for a
reason there. Never make me feel like they know my
age or my gender. They teach me
the way that they want to be
themselves.. ah... kind, caring, confident
gentleman
who never make anyone feel
inferior and so my
advice to any woman out there
....any man, it doesn't matter who you are
never ever, ever believe what you think
in here... you can do.. always
push past it .. because if you do, if you
push yourself past your own comfort zone
your going to be really surprised at what
you can achieve in life because my entire story
and path through life
has been all about pushing through comfort zones
there is nothing comfortable about it
but the reward on the other side is
looking past all the things that you were
told that you couldn't do
And saying I did it and I did it with beauty
and grace and strength and I know that
on my deathbed, I'm gonna be able able to
look back at my life, and not regret a
single thing that I ever did my choices
will never be perfect but I'm
gonna be happy, and I make a lot
of controversial choices in my
life.. am..
but I'm really going
to be satisfied and content.
So make sure you are who you
are and you live under who you are created
to be, cause I have never in my life
been happier than I am at 36 years old.
And more confident and strong because
this is the best time of my life,
and it's all because you have strength and courage
to really step out into the unknown
and take a leap of faith. I want somebody else to be
like .. oh.. if she can do it - I can,
Cool, Yeah! So that whole idea of inspiring people
through your own actions and getting them to
connect with you...
So tell us about your boxing projects..
that's one of your big things right now.
I love mixing strength and beauty,
because there is such a stigma
in today's world, that women have to be
strong, or just beautiful but you can't be both
and women are allowed to be strong
women are allowed to have heels on one day
and go walk down the street to a Broadway
show and then then next day
next day be in the boxing gym or in the wilderness
getting dirt under her fingernails.. you
know? I think that's the greatest part about being a
woman and pushing these barriers...
so that you can show others that they
do it too! I don't like
I LOVE bitting moulds ...
I am NOT a 'cookie cutter' kind of girl
never will be so that's basically
the heart of what I do and I want to give
that to other girls.
I love that..
So where can we find out more about
the work you are doing cause you doing a lot of cool
work in a lot of areas and I know
you really more focused, you do a lot
with sports portraits.. senior portraits.
Sportraits!
But obviously a lot with
am elements..
the astro photography and the
fire shots that were really cool
Fire landscape work and
all that element work.
Where would you want people to find out
more about what you do?
There are 2 studios I work through
am, I have my portrait studio which
is you know... teenage sportraits
anything that I do that has lights
that would be like a commercial gig a
paying gig.. anything like that.. and and
that's TPS Photography, we're based in
Morgantown. My landscape work or what
I call my therapy.. on the weekends
what I do on the weekends is
Cathy Anderson Photography
You can go to TPS Photography,com
or Cathy Anderson Photography.com
to see my landscape and adventure photography.
But I am really trying to do a lot with lighting.
And take my love for the outdoors and my love
for off camera flash
and marry them. So a lot of that
is going to be
with Cathy Anderson but I'm just really excited to
be able to do both of what
I do and and I'm a firm believer
if you can't find someone to pay you for
your passion.. you are in the wrong job.
And I'me very blessed to be able to do it
ever single day of my life.
And ah...
It's just been one of the greatest rides of my life.. so
that's it... Thank you very much!
Thanks so much Kathy check us out here next
time on AdoramaTV and while you're
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