Josh Caple - Photographer

BLOG HAS MOVED, PLEASE UPDATE YOUR LINKS!

2008-11-17T21:09:00.000-08:00

Hi everyone, just migrating this blog to be bigger & better.
Check out http://www.joshcaple.com/blog/ for the new deal, make sure you bookmark it so that you don't miss out on updates!

Donate

2008-11-04T16:41:00.000-08:00

I'm all for helping a brother out, which is why I've signed up for 'Movember'.
All over Australia during the month formerly recognised as November, men (and some women) are growing amazing moustaches to raise money for the fight against prostate cancer & men's depression.

Please click here to support my mo, and help to save other dudes' lives!
https://www.movember.com/au/donate/donate-details.php?action=sponsorlink&rego=1942861&country=au

A computer generated image of what my Mo will look like in a month's time.

Another great organisation that I support is the 'Leave No Trace' initiative.
If you're like me & spend a great deal of your life in wild and beautiful areas, you can't help but be concerned about the impact that we are having on these environments.

LNT has just announced 'The Bigfoot Challenge' - Bigfoot's been leaving no trace for years, and so can we! The goal is to raise $5000 in just 2 weeks, via a 'Cause' page on Facebook.
Check it out at http://apps.facebook.com/causes/4551

CAPTURE Magazine

2008-11-04T16:27:00.000-08:00

Just picked up a copy of the latest CAPTURE, Australia's top selling professional photography magazine. Troy Beer put together a feature on 'extreme shooters' including interviews with both myself & with my good friend/mentor Simon Carter (who landed the cover), which I'm very stoked on!
Check it out at your newsagents today.

Bed Time

2008-11-04T15:17:00.000-08:00

Last week I spent a sunny Sunday morning hanging out in the bedroom with my mate Courtney shooting some photos, a mixture of personal work & website shots for Heresy Snowboarding's new girlswear range. It was Court's first time modelling and she was an absolute natural.
Enjoy.

The Way of All Flesh

2008-07-30T06:56:00.000-07:00

OK so it's been a while since I posted, about time for an update!

I had quite a busy weekend, starting with a spur-of-the-moment pub crawl on Friday night. Much fun was had, I somehow got home (albeit at 6am) in one piece and snuck in a nanna nap. At 8:30 I was up & at 'em- packed my camera bags & ropes into the van & spent a few hours driving around the countryside. After a delicious Caltex breakfast & a quick 'hello' stop at Simon Carter's house (he just got back from Europe!) I made it to Barden's Lookout in Mt Victoria (Blue Mountains) with young gun Axel Tritton & trusty belay-slave Macca MacPherson in tow.
Despite only being 16, Axel has been climbing at a high level for years. Today we wanted to shoot photos on a classic route called 'The Way of All Flesh' (28/5.13), and also test out some new Fstop bags. Several weeks ago the great fellas at Fstop sent me a range of camera bags to test drive. There are already lots of things I'd love to see improved on the bags, but they are definitely on the right track and are taking the feedback on board- I suspect it won't be long before I am using their bags exclusively!

Anyway it's late & I'm rambling, so to very quickly wrap up the shoot was a great success & I will be using one of the photos for a poster series (more on that soon- they will released at the World Youth Climbing Championships in late August, where I will be heading up the event photography)

3Degrees Initiative Launched- Help Save Snowboarding!

2008-07-03T05:38:00.001-07:00

Bouldering at The Grove

2008-06-19T11:12:00.000-07:00

Quite a busy week in the life of Josh... lots of exciting things happening, but I'm keeping that all under wraps just for now- all will be revealed in good time!x
For a bit of eye-candy; I spent the afternoon at a secret bouldering spot called 'The Grove' with my good friends Pat & Miles, shooting a couple photos for a Crux Magazine article.

GeoQuest Wrap-up

2008-06-11T00:57:00.000-07:00

Dizzy yet? Well spin no longer folks! The race gallery is online right here;
http://www.joshcaple.com/galleries/events/AR/GeoQuest08/index.html

Huge thanks to everyone at the race for helping everything to go so smoothly, these things don't just 'happen'. Also double huge thanks to my Dan Himbrechts (good looker & all-round nice guy, on his days off he's a very talented & accomplished snowboard photographer) for lending me some extra flash gear for the event, and to Craig Albury (who owns RDMH in Katoomba, Blue Mountains- they do adventure guiding & photo workshops) for loaning me a spare lens. Gosh darn, you guys are just the living end.

If you would like to purchase prints or usage rights for any of the images from the event, please don't hesitate to get in touch!

GeoQuest Race- Update

2008-06-07T22:26:00.000-07:00

Phew! I'm back at HQ after another big day... for the competitors anyway! I spent several hours at a remote checkpoint waiting for teams to arrive, keeping myself very busy with a packet of pasta & a book. The quiet times weren't to last however- once the teams came through I well & truly got my click-click on! Unfortunately no new photos for you just yet... luckily if you spin around really really fast (try it, so much fun!) it will be Tuesday before you know it & I'll have full race galleries up. That doesn't even make sense. Oh well.

EDIT:
Ohhhh, OK then. Here's a couple shots of the Smartwool 'Girls on Top' team winning the all-women's division just a few minutes ago!

Mountain Designs GeoQuest Adventure Race

2008-06-07T03:03:00.000-07:00

Adventure races are seriously hardcore. Seriously.
14 hours down, 34 to go. The athletes don't stop, so neither will I!
I'll try to add a few photos after each leg of the race, & you can get the 'official' race reports at http://www.geocentricoutdoors.com.au/geoquest/race08/reports.htm or get Steve Cooper's lowdown right... http://www.sleepmonsters.com.au/racereport.php?race_id=5520 <- there!

[SEE UPDATES HERE]

Famous?

2008-06-05T00:24:00.000-07:00

Apparently! Here's a photo of me strolling about in the Blue Mountains, on the cover of a trade show promo booklet for RDMH (a company I have done a lot of canyon/climbing guiding for in the past)
Indiana Jones font is brilliant!

In other news, I'm about to hot-foot it out the door to Coffs Harbour for 4 (likely sleepless) days of shooting adventure racers darting about in lycra.

More on that when I return, everyone have a safe and enjoyable long weekend!

Heresy Snowboards

2008-05-27T21:48:00.000-07:00

Heresy is a great little rider-driven board & clothing brand based in Melbourne, Australia.
You won't find them in shops, their gear is largely limited edition, they do custom boards & the whole vibe of the company is just rad!
I've been riding Heresy boards for a little over a year, and I have been so totally impressed with how they ride that I've gotten on board as the NSW rep for the company- if you want more info on the brand new gear for this season, get in touch at joshc@heresysnowboarding.com!

Here's a snapshot of me riding my 07 board in Japan earlier this year..

(cheers to Matty Stone for the photo!)

Blue Mountains Photo Workshop

2008-05-26T08:10:00.000-07:00

Last weekend I had the pleasure of teaching a 1-day landscape photography workshop in the Blue Mountains. The weather wasn't being altogether friendly, but we managed to get a few shots & everyone learned a lot. I just wish that the workshops were longer, there's so much information to pass on & so little time!
Here are a few quick shots I took of the class in action...

The Orphan Works Bill- those pesky Yanks are at it again!

2008-05-22T08:08:00.000-07:00

You may have heard the name being thrown around lately? Good reason for that- it's worse news than a preist in a preschool and if something isn't done it will just go right ahead and have us creative-folk lined up & touching our toes.
Check out this primer video for the real deal;

Send a letter to Congress to STOP this bill!

The Buzz!

2008-05-22T06:43:00.000-07:00

I hope that buzz never fades, that tingly excitement when you see your hard work in print!
I just ducked up to the post box & picked up the latest Outer Edge magazine, with a 7-pager I wrote on back country ski/boarding in NSW. Grab your copy for the lowdown!

This is the first time I've written something & not shot the photos to go with it, which I will say feels a bit wierd...a big thanks to Dave Bateman & Neil Monteith for supplying the photographs, you fellas did a wonderful job!

Macca: Enter stage left...

2008-05-22T00:42:00.000-07:00

Reminiscing about the Buffalo shoot last winter got me thinking about some of the adventure I've had with Macca. He is a hard-core aid climber and pretty much owns Dog Face these days... Dog Face (Malatia Pt, Blue Mountains) is an imposing sandstone cliff that was formed in the 1930's by a huge landslide, thus it has the structural integrity of an eroded sand dune. Even abseiling down it often causes HUGE rock avalanches. The place scares me, it scares everyone, but Macca loves it.
So one day we decided to get some photos of Macca onsight solo-aiding a new route on the Dog. He was successful in completing the 2nd pitch of the route (a 7 hour ordeal) but the 3rd (top) pitch looked bad, REAL bad, even by Doggie standards. Macca looked excited.
I quietly explained I had all the photos I wanted. He understood my concern for his safety & we bailed to his house in Katoomba, where we hung out for a while & ended up doing an interview for CRUX magazine (where I was working as the Photo Editor at the time).

So anyway, here's the interview & check out some of the photos right over..... here!

PAPERS PAPERS PAPERS

2008-05-21T20:07:00.000-07:00

I have been in the office all week getting the 'behind the photos' work done, so no new shoots unfortunately. I have a bit more time next week & a few shoots to fill that time, until then I thought I'd post something out of the files to spice this page up a little...

Here's a few photos from a feature I did for Outer Edge magazine (for the Feb-Mar 08 issue). It was quite an epic little shoot following my two mates Dave Gliddon & Julian Bell up a 4-day winter ascent of 'Ozymandias Direct' on the North Wall of Buffalo Gorge. It barely stopped snowing/sleeting/raining/hailing the entire time, so keeping my camera gear dry while mucking about with ropes proved quite a challenge!
My travelling/portaledge buddy for the shoot was Macciza MacPherson, who was filming the whole adventure.
The ascent was a 'little' more epic for the fact that I had a very painful back (to the point of hallucinating from pain) which turned out to be a snowboarding injury- verdict: several fractured spinal disks. It certainly made hauling the bags 'uncomfortable'!
We gave a slideshow in Katoomba (Blue Mountains) shortly after the ascent which was great fun.

Check out some of the photos here, and an excerpt from the story here.

BRAND NEW BLOG NERD!

2008-05-19T22:04:00.000-07:00

So I've finally gone and joined the blogging rage, I'm pretty hip like that.
I aim to post little stories & a few from my shoots so you fine people can check out the latest & greatest as it all goes down.

To start things off...
Several weeks ago I was asked to shoot the wedding of my good friends Simon Carter & Monique Forestier. I was a bit apprehensive seeing as I had never shot a wedding before, but it all came together nicely & we had a great day.