As a former hard-core athlete, Kemple knows the “crux moments” that inspire. He also knows they sometimes mean taking as much risk or more as the folks he’s snapping.
was scaling the sheer vertical limestone sea cliffs of Mallorca, rope-free, in a sport called deep-water soloing. Kemple was roped up in the unseen foreground, his assistant operating a remote flash while clipped in farther down the line. Pearson is captured losing his grip and falling 50 feet into the dark water below. The climbing chalk coming off his outstretched hands looks like contrails. Pearson’s shirtless back is to the camera, making it appear that Kemple is shooting from another elaborately suspended vantage point out in the Mediterranean. In fact, he had rappelled 10 feet down the face and leaned precipitously out. “It was James’ idea to fall 50 feet into water,” says Kemple. “I said, ‘Are you sure?’ ” When I asked Kemple if it’s hard to find help given the dangerous places he goes—not to mention his preference for shooting on days “when it’s raining, snowing, windy, or about to storm”—he says, no, just the opposite. He gets a steady stream of emails from amateur photographers hoping to join him on whatever adventure he’s planning next. That interest is only liable to grow with the avalanche of recognition coming Kemple’s way. He has been featured in National Geographic and Outside, and is a frequent contributor to high-profile outdoor companies like The North Face and Eastern Mountain Sports. The rockstar collective that he helped found—the Camp 4 Collective (named for the famous climbing site at Yosemite)—is made up of four of the best young adventure photographers in the outdoor world, each of whom produce both film and still images. For Kemple, working with like-minded photographers keeps him motivated, each pushing the other to explore using tech-
nique, craft, and their own extraordinary “personal hardiness.” As he told National Geographic, “We are no longer viewing ‘the never seen before’ but instead ‘the never seen before this way.’” Creativity, he says, is increasingly more important than documentation. To that end, Kemple’s recent shoot at Denali is part of a new category of personal work where he spends a week or so with a subject, “capturing their energy or the place’s energy” while challenging himself to shoot the before-seen from a fresh perspective. His aerial shooting brought a new look at the same awe-inspiring landscape captured a half-century earlier by one of his role models, the pioneering photographer and mapmaker Bradford Washburn. “My friends and colleagues who are pure artists tend to do things just because it feels right,” he says, explaining the challenges that more calculating, leftbrain adventurers face. “I’m a little envious of that because I’m more of a thinker. I do a lot of planning, so when I’m scrambling around on top of cliffs or in an avalancheprone area trying to get one shot, I am usually asking myself, ‘Is it really worth it?’ I guess my answer is, ‘Yeah, it is.’ ” For Kemple, anything is possible in the future, including a longer-term project. He’s not yet sure what form that might take, but the idea of deeper immersion and an enduring legacy adventure is one he looks forward to. More often now, he stays longer when he travels, attempting to genuinely answer the question he inevitably hears when he returns: What is the exotic place you’ve just been to like? “Some of the most successful photographers from a business and art perspective have been really good at staying focused on telling the longer-term story of a place,”
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