sierraclub.org - sierra magazine - march/april 2012 - high-art - high art: keith ladzinski
By Jonathan Thesenga
Keith Ladzinski
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"While driving back from a day of climbing with Chris Sharma, one of the world's best rock climbers, I spotted this old bridge near his home in Spain. Chris and I were pretty fired up when the photo ended up being used in a climbing-shoe ad."
—Keith Ladzinski
Not long after, Ladzinski teamed up with a friend to shoot bouldering and urban climbing on the underside of a bridge. "I shot it up with the strobes, just like with the skate shots," he says. Climbing companies and magazines gobbled up Ladzinski's flash-heavy images, the likes of which the sport had never seen. In 2006, an ice-climbing photo of his made it onto the front page of the New York Times.
Ladzinski's peerless success with remote strobes is the result of countless hours of installing lights and taking test shots. "I now know exactly how to rig everything so the light is just how I want it," says the 35-year-old photographer. "I don't have problems with flashes falling out of trees anymore, but I'll still spend five hours on one shot. It's never easy."