Cory: By the time I was 14, I was completely dropped
out of high school, and for the most part, homeless. My education came from
observing what was happening around me and observing that richness that comes
with struggle. I was always looking for a way to translate what I was seeing
around me, and photography became my voice in this big, very confusing, world.
And that was, that was the beginning. I think adventure is anything that puts us
outside our comfort zone. In my world that has always been going into the
mountains. In 2010, 2011, I went ot Pakistan to climb in the Himalayan winter.
We did the first ascent of gashama 2, an eight thousand meter peak in the
caracoram Himalaya. And that trip changed my life forever. On the descent we
were hit by an avalanche that nearly killed all three of us. When I realized that I
had not died, I turned a camera on myself and took an image. And that image
ended up being put on the cover of National Geographic. There was no way of
knowing at the time that that image that was really just my way of dealing with
stress, was gonna to push my life in such a dramatic direction towards telling that
larger story of, of what it means to hurt and what it means to triumph and what
it means to be human. I've never been comfortable in the place that I'm in. I
can't stop and sit. It's a constant engine that just keeps driving me towards the
things that are unknown to me. It doesn't matter if I can't feel my fingers, it
doesn't matter how my face stings and literally feels like it's getting sandblasted.
What matters is that somebody else can feel that by looking at a picture. I've
been to all 7 continents. I've witnessed sunrise over the highest mountains in the
world. Polar bears standing on the last piece of ice, on the farthest north piece
of land on the EurAsian continent. And faces-I've seen faces that are just years
and years of history all wrapped into one single expression. I think intimacy is the
lynchpin to all great photography. The most important tool for connecting with
anybody that you're photographing is being able to make somebody laugh.
Cory: You're not that much older than me. (laughter) Cory: Just give them that
moment, all of a sudden, you have a friend for life. And the whole world opens
up. My job is to communicate a real, raw, visceral experience. And despite the
seriousness of all of this and despite the fact that we are facing massive problems
as a human family, we're still experiencing each other and loving and having a
ton of fun. I mean, life is fun. This started as a way for me to communicate for
what I was experiencing and what it's become is a way to communicate what we
are experiencing.