Over the last 20 years, a lot has changed in climbing, photography, and life. I started climbing rocks when I was 13 years old, right around the same time I started shooting pictures. Back then, 5.14a was still considered hard, and I was shooting Fuji Velvia slide film and making exposure calculations in my head.
Nowadays, 5.14a is a warm-up for the kids, and the Nikon D4s is like a super-computer that does all the technical thinking and calculating for you so that you can always come away with incredible, perfectly exposed images.
My friends at Big Up Productions and Sender Films put together this awesome little spot for Clif Bar on two of climbing’s youngest and brightest stars: Kai Lightner and Ashima Shiraishi. Kai and Ashima are climbing things that were unthinkable 20 years ago, all with the playful mindset of a kid. It’s no exaggeration to say that the future has arrived: the next generation of climbers is here, and they are ramping up to take the torch from the leading climbers of my generation—like Chris Sharma, Tommy Caldwell, Beth Rodden and Katie Brown—and go on to do new, exciting things that will push our sport to new heights.
Hope you enjoy this video as much as I did. Thanks to Clif Bar for supporting this video, and hats off to Josh and Brett Lowell at Big Up Productions and Peter Mortimer at Sender Films for the great edit.
