|
A Flawed Digital Revolution? Letter from the Ed.... "Nothing is permanent but change." - Heraclitus Climbing photography inspires us all by giving us an escape from our daily grind, transporting us to far flung exotic destinations. It can also educate about the depth of climbing's extensive and interesting history. As the world completes the transition from film to digital based photography we leave ourselves open to the loss of this history. We love the way digital works here at CRUX. Contributors email us high resolution photos from across the globe on a daily basis. Using our online database we can search and view our entire photo library and share this with our staff simultaneously anywhere on earth. It’Äôs an instant dissemination of visual information unheard of a few years ago - and it's far cheaper than film ever was. However, there are inherent problems with this new technology for the unwary. How permanent is digital technology? These days we shoot a few climbing snaps, email them to some friends, post a few pics online, then format our memory card and start afresh. You might be burning your photos to backup CDs every week, but will you have a CD player in the future? How many still have reel to reel audio tape systems at home? These inventions are only thirty years old, but most would consider them antiques. I can flip through my collection of slide photos from the early 90s at any time of the day, but ask me to view something from my collection of video tapes from the same period and I’Äôm stumped. Anyone got a Hi-8 player? Alternatively I’Äôve seen people upload their photos to photo sharing websites in the blind hope that these dot com companies will still be around in ten years time, let alone forty years when you want to show your photos to your grandkids! Dot bomb anyone? As digital technology rapidly accelerates, we are continually being confronted with confusing and incompatible new file formats and storage mediums that greatly increase the chance of our valuable climbing history being lost forever. JPEGs are the standard photo file format today but who says this will be the case next year? There is an expectation that digital means forever, which is highly misguided. There is actually more chance of precious memories being permanently erased with this new medium. A damaged roll of film would mean the demise of 36 photos, but a damaged flash card could result in the destruction of thousands of precious memories. A whole climbing holiday could disappear with the accidental press of a button. The lifespan of hard drives and CDs is measured in decades not centuries. One crash and your entire digitally recorded life has gone. It’Äôs a worrying trend for anyone who loves flipping through old books and reminiscing amongst past climbing adventures. Another big downside of digital photography is the way it produces 'staged perfection’Äô. We live in a 'quick fix' generation; if a photo doesn’Äôt have positive meaning now, we just delete it and move on. How many important captured moments have been deleted because we didn’Äôt believe it was worth keeping at the time? We can all be our own photo editors in the field, reviewing a photo as soon as it is taken and delete it if it doesn’Äôt fit our own narrow-minded expectations of what should be there. Do I look scared? Delete it. Dogging on a route you should have onsighted? Delete it. This creates a false record of what actually happened on the day. You never know, the weekend photos of the young bumbly thrashing around on the top-rope could turn out to be an important historical moment captured - the next Chris Webb. Photography is a way of owning the moment, but it's our choice of which moments to own. I’Äôm a big believer in capturing not just the heroics but also the darker side of climbing. How many photos have you seen of someone chipping or drilling? It’Äôs something that happens every day but is rarely recorded. On retrospect, it’Äôs not the actual climbs that are interesting, but the people, equipment and fashion. Take a look at our ’Äò80s Arapiles gallery and the history pages in this issue for a great example! Who’Äôd have thought that a pic of a skinny young Mike Law would be such a great historical shot thirty years later in 2007? Hopefully this first CRUX Photo Annual will act as a time capsule of this moment in our history and also act as a showcase for some of the finest climbing photos being produced by enthusiastic local photographers. In forty years time you can pull out this mag from the bookshelf, brush off the dust and explain to your grandkids how you used to climb rocks using such archaic things as ropes and carabiners. They’Äôll probably laugh hysterically at the bad fashion and wonder in awe about what it was like to climb in an unregulated wilderness paradise. Or maybe that's just the cynic in me! As always I’Äôd like to extend a big thanks to all the CRUX team, who have worked tirelessly to produce this magazine. The names you see on the credits page deserve a beer and a free belay session any time you see them. Chances are they spent their weekends in a darkened room whilst you were out climbing!¬Ý¬Ý Neil Monteith - Ed |
Contents Features 18 24 31 35 48 54 60 70 76
22 28 32 35 42 44 46 48 59 64 Regular Stuff 3 12 14 15 16 17 20 34 67 68 72 80 CRUX Stuff 81 Prize Winners! |
