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Rock climbing at Mammoth Lakes | G-Project Gear

To follow up on the previously posted fly fishing shoot at Mammoth Lakes, here some selects and behind the scenes photos of Michael and Jacob Forrer rock climbing at Mammoth Lakes, CA. This adventure lifestyle series was created to accompany new product launches for G-Project Gear, makers of ruggedized Bluetooth wireless speakers.

Shooting Video and Stills On Location

Shooting both stills and video in back country with a skeleton crew can be challenging. We shot in tandem as much as we could to avoid climbers repeating their movements, and to keep the adventure moving forward. Though one huge obstacle was powering the cameras and computer equipment using only solar (Goal Zero) and DC (Toyota Tacoma) generated power for 5 days. Besides recharging at a coffee shop on the 3rd day, the lack of mains power in the outdoors made backing up terabytes of data each day an exhausting task.

However the packaged deliverables was incredible. We delivered (10) teaser video clips, (1) full 3 min video edit, countless behind the scenes outtakes, and (2) complete image galleries with 30+ images each. Work from this series was featured in Refueled Magazine, several social accounts like Gear Project, Born To Hike, Westcott Lighting, and Lexar. Lastly, some portraits from this series won first place in Ragefinder Magazine’s Lifestyle Photo Awards. So on top of the actual assignment, this project involved a lot of additional outreach to help it get more eyeballs.

Rock Climbing With The Black Magic Design URSA

For this production we shot video in 4K with the Black Magic Design URSA cinema camera to film our adventures at Mammoth Lakes and Bishop, CA. The URSA is an anvil to lug around in back country for 5 days. While a smaller camera would have been more practical, the BMD cameras are a cinematic fit for the scenery of the Eastern Sierras. To make it work we used the URSA as much as possible on a tripod, then Go-Pros for trickier spots.

Below is a fly fishing shortie to wet your beak on the URSA’s image quality. The finished video edit Fly Fishing & Rock Climbing at Mammoth Lakes is now live. Too bad the URSA Mini wasn’t available at the time. Ugh!

For more images from this series, you can view the entire rock climbing photo gallery at Mammoth Lakes on the website. If you’re ready to eat avocado and hard boiled egg sandwiches from the back of a truck on location – then let’s go.


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Jay Watson
San Francisco Bay Area based lifestyle and people photographer Jay Watson shoots editorial, apparel, automotive, corporate, and sports subjects for commercial clients. Published in over 70 magazines.

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