Of Skin and Rock
Exploring the enigmatic world of cliffside ecstasy: a journey into the minds of adventurous climbers. Photography and words by Fin MacMillan.
I grew up climbing the Welsh Snowdonian mountains with my dad and uncle; I can remember the mix of intense fear and exhilaration on that cold and dark day where a ten-year-old Fin scaled a 150ft cliff face without ropes alongside my farther – wanting to make him proud. The motivation driving me all those years ago is experienced by every climber and boulderer when on the rock – it is the ecstasy that draws us junkies back whenever we can afford the time.
In an age where so many hobbies and sports are incredibly accessible, why do we choose to climb? Why travel so far along rugged terrain with heavy bags to scale cliff-tops or mammoth boulders, destroying our hands in the process and, eventually, injuring ourselves. In fact, during the project there were two injuries among my subjects – one requiring surgery. But this question of why is one that I kept finding myself coming back to. As a climber and a photographer, I was in a unique position to explore this through the lens, and so I have spent over 2 years walking out onto the boulder-fields with my kit, sleeping under boulders or in pillboxes, and climbing as much as I possibly could. Bouldering has always been a big part of my life, but it feels as though I have uncovered a far deeper and intimate side to it during the production of this project, and this experience has been utterly amazing.
As I made more and more of these trips, I found myself coming back to the same question: Why do these people spend their precious time off work driving out to remote and rugged places to tear their hands apart in the cold? Of all the hobbies they could do, why boulder? This question quickly became the subject of the project – I didn’t just want to document the act, but instead uncover their motivations.
The images directly above and below were from a particularly cold December night, climbing until midnight in -1 degrees before dragging our pads under Vandal Boulder to sleep. Other times we stayed in old pill boxes or just under the stars. There was a beauty in this lifestyle once it had been fully embraced and I would frequently long to be carrying the weight on my back while walking to the train with a mind full of the adventure I was going on.
I felt that as a photographer and a climber, I had a unique perspective from which to shoot. The 5x4 camera and flash heads were always an alien object within the boulderfields. Even when I was with people I had climbed with for years, my camera’s presence left every shoot as a conflict between the insider and the outsider. While at my locations I would climb myself, consider different shots while on the rock, and take turns working on projects while setting up my frame. The slow process dictated by large format systems allowed my subjects to quickly see this strange object as another element within the rugged landscape we found ourselves in - by the time I was ready to take their picture, the camera was no longer alien.
One evening, having set up a flash-lit frame looking at Lip Boulder with shutter cocked and dark-slide removed, I gave the shutter release cable to my climbing partner Fraser Long who decided the moment to photograph the scene. Interestingly, Fraser didn’t choose the most photogenic moment or body position but instead when I was climbing hardest or on the trickiest move. This was repeated throughout the project with different climbers controlling the shutter of the frame that I had constructed. The relationship between climber and photographer, or insider and outsider, became an important relationship in the production of the project and reinforced that these images are of climbers by climbers.
I wanted to ground the images and the project within that question of ‘why?’ And so began to work with the subjects to create short statements about their motivations for bouldering. It was important to me that the subject had more power over how their images and how the overall message was presented to the viewer.
Climbers often have a specific body-type, lean and toned. This is a direct result of the rock on which they climb, and I quickly found that the black and white film, flash lighting, and perspective of the images I was creating blended the skin and the rock together noticeably. The contrasty shadows and darks of the hair looked like the same shadows cast on and by the rock face. This effect was only exaggerated by the high-contrast darkroom printing that I used on every image in the series.
With the deadline of my postgraduate degree drawing closer, I knew that my time left on the project was limited. The long walks with my 45kg pad and the late nights had taken a toll, and I was unsure how long I would continue to make these trips once the motivation of my MA had been removed. This was certainly on my mind during my final days in Portland, and, perhaps, passivised the images I was creating.
And so, the project came to an end; I made two subsequent trips with my Profoto flash and 5x4 camera after handing in my MA work, but in the weight and approach of winter led me to leave my camera gear when travelling to the Dorset crags. In March 2024, nearly 2 years after beginning the project, an exciting opportunity reared its head which would allow me to continue Of Skin & Rock...
Website → finmacmillan.co.uk
Instagram → @fin.macmillan
