Photograph by Jeremiah Watt
“At this moment I was facing down canyon, which was a very exposed feeling!” says climber-highliner Scott Turpin, who was photographed at sunrise walking between two towers in the Needles in California's Sequoia National Forest. “The direct exposure to the notch was only about a hundred feet, but on all sides, the ground fell away quickly down to the Kern River thousands of feet below.”
To play in the Needles, Turpin and his friends had to hike three miles on a good trail followed by about a half mile of third-class scrambling to get to the world-class climbing destination. The line was rigged between two of the most prominent towers, the Sorcerer and the Charlatan.
“I could feel the sun moving quickly and saw it finally out of the corner of my eye,” Turpin recalls of the chilly morning. “The moment was brief, as are most perfect moments. I turned around, slid out on the line, found my breath, and walked back.”
Getting the Shot
“Two years ago, Scott and I had been to the Needles with a few other friends to rig and shoot, but due to high winds, the line never went up,” recalls photographer Jeremiah Watt. “[Scott] was headed for a rematch and wanted to know if I'd be interested in shooting."
Photographing from about 200 feet below the line, Watt planned his lighting and waited for the right moment. “There's a large granite spire just behind my lefthand side. I knew that first light would be stunning, but thought that as soon as the sun broke the horizon, it would throw the shadow of the spire across the face and spoil the image,” he says.
Instead, Mother Nature surprised the photographer. “The sun graced the shoulder behind me and tattooed this crisp silhouette of the pines on the face," Watt says. "If the sun had been a fraction higher or lower it wouldn't have worked. ‘F/8 and be there’ is an old photo mantra. Granted this is at F/5, but being there was the ticket.”
Watt used a Nikon D700 camera and a Nikon 16-35mm lens.
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