Did the National Geographic
magazine shoot come first?
The movie came first, and then
National Geographic magazine said,
“Well, we would love for you to also
shoot a photo assignment.”
How were you able to do both?
It’s very difficult. They have different
agendas. I literally had a camera for
stills bolted to my cinema camera. You
have to make a lot of hard decisions.
Try to imagine shooting a movie and
stills simultaneously, and you’re trying
to pick up a vérité scene that’s really
critical to the narrative of the film, yet
it’s an amazing photo and you’ve now
positioned your own DP in the positionyou want to shoot.
It was a major juggling act. We spent
35 to 40 days on El Cap filming while
he was practicing.On the day he decided to “go
for it,” where did you position
the cameras?
We had two long-lensed Canon EOSAlex Honnold prepares to rappel off the summit of El
Capitan in order to climb certain sections of Freerider. digitalphotopro.com July/August 2019 | 53